Hark! the dogs howl!
by Froody
Summary: "Word to the wise, werewolf," said Sirius, a wry smile on his lips. "Next time, don't get caught." - Remus' soul is cast bare when his lycanthropy is discovered, but some secrets are left untouched by the full moon...
1. The Inconstant Moon

_Hark! the dogs howl! the sleetwinds blow,_

_The church-clocks knoll: the hours haste,_

_I leave the dreaming world below._

_Blown o'er frore heads of hills I go,_

_Long narrowing friths and strips of snow -_

_Time bears my soul into the waste._

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

* * *

Remus kicked a particularly large pebble into the lake, and winced. His big toe throbbed painfully, sticking out the end of a worn sneaker that had long since become too small.

He glared at the greying shoe. It was infinitely less complicated to be angry at a shoe than at his parents. Parents too agitated by his condition to truly welcome their only son home for the holidays. Parents who poured their dwindling gold into fruitless searches for remedies, and left nothing for what some would see as essentials.

Guilt, Remus supposed, was a stronger motivator than stubbed toes.

He supposed his parents were disgusted by him, despite their efforts, their weak smiles and cold embraces. He supposed that their lives must be much easier and less guilt-ridden when their werewolf son was safely at school during term.

He supposed he was being unfair.

As dusk settled over the smooth surface of the lake, the water's golden sunset sheen swiftly replaced with glistening darkness, Remus hung his head in the cooling air and waited for the holidays to end. He determinedly averted his eyes from the darkening sky.

It wasn't that Remus Lupin was particularly inclined to bouts of teenage angst. In fact, twenty-eight days out of thirty he was normally quite cheerful, ready to join his friends in some elaborate scheme or another with congratulatory visits to the Hogwarts kitchens afterwards. He barely even complained if some miscalculation due to the bursting enthusiasm of his friends landed him in detention. Purely and simply, his friends, or rather, their absence, were the cause of his current aggravation.

Without the daring and often explosive antics of Sirius and James, there was no distraction. Without the quiet presence of Peter, who, along with Remus, preferred to stand a little back rather than sport singed eyebrows, there was loneliness. Here, in a desolate, run-down cottage by the lake, there was nothing for Remus to do but adopt his parents' melancholy and count down the days until the first of September and the start of his third year at Hogwarts.

He watched the reflection of a waxing moon find clarity as the darkness settled, a frown knitting his brow. Finally, as it seemed that the moon had reached solidity in the lake's still surface, he kicked another rock into the shallows and felt a grim satisfaction as the moon's image distorted. He ignored his stinging toe.

Four days. Not until September, he wasn't that lucky. No, four days until his next self-mutilation session, his monthly transformation into a werewolf. Indeed, it was this aspect of Remus, so foreign to the often withdrawn, quiet schoolboy his friends knew at Hogwarts, that created the necessity for his seclusion by the lake each summer. He had been invited several times in the last few years to stay at James' house for the holidays along with Peter and Sirius, and each time had declined. No matter how much he dreaded the loneliness and boredom of summer holidays with his parents, he appreciated his friends more.

They could never know. Lycanthropy was more than a matter of confidence between friends. Remus had concealed his unsavoury monthly transformation from his fellow students at Hogwarts for two years. Sometimes he was amazed at the ease with which his flimsy excuses for disappearing every month were accepted by his friends. With a twinge in his stomach, he tried to forget that his friends' trust was flouted so regularly.

Could any of his friends possibly understand how necessary it was to keep such a condition a secret, hidden beneath shyness and the regular illness of his fictional aunt? Remus pictured the laughing, open face of Sirius Black, who had forced them all to make blood promises to never lie to each other on the last day of term in first year. Even Peter, whose face had reached unprecedented pallor in view of all that blood, had grasped the others' hands, and squeaked out his covert penchant for picking his nose.

Remus, who had felt unequivocally discomfited at the time, had muttered something about knitting socks, and was entirely relieved when James distracted the others by making a show of checking Sirius for rabies with fake terror, and laughed with Peter when cries of _scourgify!_ left both black-haired boys frothing at the mouth.

No, Remus decided, short of discovering Sirius to be a rather tanned vampire, he didn't believe his secret could be benched in league with the blood promise they had made. He had never had friends before Hogwarts. He wasn't going to lose this vital source of happiness because of his lycanthropy.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Remus," his mother sighed as her son padded wearily into the small kitchen, unconsciously steering his uncovered big toe around potential obstacles.

"I know how hard it is for you, Mum," he exhaled in response, chest tightening. It was the truth. He knew how much his parents had sacrificed for him, for his condition, for this run-down old cottage and their shabby clothes, and his father's regular absence. Guilt was inset into the foundations of the Lupin household.

His mother offered him a wan smile. "You know how I feel about Hogsmeade. What if someone was to connect you to the Shrieking Shack?"

"Nobody knows what I am, Mum. Dumbledore keeps his promises, you know that. The villagers are utterly convinced that they share Hogsmeade with a violent party of ghouls. It's become quite a source of gossip at school, don't you worry. The Bloody Baron's supposedly a regular in the Shack." Remus tried to smile. "Please sign the form, Mum. Dumbledore approved and everything."

His mother wearily nodded her acquiescence and returned to her study of a violet pamphlet whose cover was emblazoned with a full moon. Remus turned away. He needed no reminding.

Remus paused in the dark hallway, wondering how to fill in the hours before dinner. His mother hated to eat before his father came home, but who knew when that would be these days? Searching for a non-existent cure for lycanthropy consumed a lot of time.

As an idea struck him, his pace quickened. He leapt up the narrow stairs and entered his room, flicking on a light switch installed by the previous muggle owners of the cottage, and grabbing a sheaf of letters before flopping onto his bed. Warmth filled his entire body as he glanced over Peter's squashed scrawl and scanned James' slanted scribble. His face broke into a wide grin as he reached the pompous, embellished calligraphy of Sirius Black, whose deft lettering somewhat contradicted the disjointed, enthusiastic writing within.

_What's up, Remus? Summer's no fun now that I'm back home again. James' parents are great and all, but I doubt they want me to hang around for a whole summer after last year. You know. What with the incident and all. Wish I'd had the camera back then, though… But I swear the house elves enjoyed their swimming trunks. _

_Write back to me, okay? There's nothing to do here. Regulus is being prepped for school, and Slytherin, and Merlin knows how much fun that is for me. _

_As promised, I enclose a photo of yours truly, stuffing James' head into a chocolate pudding. Believe me, it's hard to do while holding a camera._

_Owl me!_

_Sirius _

A brief love-affair with wizarding photography in second year had inspired Remus to demand photos from his friends during the holidays as consolation for their absence. Each had promised to owl plenty of photographic evidence of their exploits during the summer. Indeed, Sirius had offered to swear another blood oath, but James had clocked him on the head, hence avoiding further blood-loss that Remus felt the pale Peter could probably not afford.

Despite Sirius' apparent fixation on blood-letting, the possibility that he could be a vampire was unfortunately low. The boy carried a mirror in his pocket. He was not, Sirius was often heard to inform a mocking James, obsessed with his insanely good looks; nor did he need to touch up his eyeliner, or whatever muggle rubbish James so clearly enjoyed. No, he was merely deathly afraid that his silken hair would begin to look like James' matted heap, and was making efforts to avoid this.

Inevitably, this conversation would end in a tussle.

Remus, however, knew better. A certain haughty conceit had been inherited by Sirius from his pureblood heritage, though the boy would go to many lengths to deny any connection to the intolerant House of Black. While Sirius had managed to shake his position as heir by somehow being sorted into Gryffindor rather than the traditional (and mandatory) Slytherin, certain habits died hard.

James, on the other hand, also the progeny of a pureblood wizarding family, had the fortune of being born to a tolerant household. Remus often admired James' open affability, his ready acceptance of others – with the notable exception of Slytherins. It was true that a traditional dislike for the serpentine House existed among Gryffindors, but James seemed to carry this sentiment to the extreme. Remus supposed that Sirius' consensus in this area did nothing to ease James' feelings.

Sometimes Remus wondered if James was converting his anxiety for his Auror parents into a stiff hatred of Dark Arts-loving Slytherins, but he would never suggest such a thing. He was hardly able to urge rationality concerning one's parents. And he felt too much loyalty for his friend.

He was joined here by Peter, who had stuck hard and fast to his three friends ever since James had adopted him into the group. As the fourth Gryffindor boy in their year level, he could hardly be left out. Although Peter's hero-worship of James was tiresome and sometimes nerve-wracking, Remus appreciated the smaller boy's company in the shadow of the great Sirius and James duo.

Remus gazed at Sirius' photo and felt his tension ebb. What could be better for the soul than friends and chocolate? Friends _in_ chocolate? He owed each of them so much, though they hardly knew what a difference they had made to his life. He supposed he owed them the truth; but in the end, they were probably better off not knowing. His parents showed him that much, at least.

* * *

"Merlin, were you run over by the Knight Bus on the way to the station?"

A brash voice interrupted Remus' weary reverie as he sat gingerly on his battered trunk on Platform 9 ¾, waiting for his friends to make their ever-colourful appearances. Here was no exception.

Remus grinned up at Sirius, who had arrived in his own unmistakeable fashion, as strident and haughty as ever. At the sight of Remus' smile, Sirius' own face broke into a wide grin and he pulled the smaller boy into a rough hug. Remus attempted not to cringe as he felt fresh wounds pull and muscles ache at the contact. Full moon had been particularly rough the week before.

Remus tried valiantly to hide all fatigue and pain around his friends, particularly Sirius, who seemed to notice it more.

"Actually, it was less the Knight Bus, and more a rampaging herd of Hippogriffs," he replied, hitting Sirius on the shoulder affectionately and managing not to whimper as his bruised knuckles took the brunt of the blow.

"As long as you get written off in style," Sirius smirked, but ran his eyes over the visible bruising on Remus' face worriedly. Remus hoped he was just bemused, and frantically sought a distracting topic of conversation.

"Well, you've grown," he commented dryly, stepping back and feigning amazement at the towering height of his smug friend. "Looks like someone's been in to Mother's growth potions."

"You bet I've grown," Sirius replied, and then, as if verifying his statement, lifted two fingers to his mouth and wolf-whistled loudly, peering over the heads of jostling students to someone the shorter Remus couldn't hope to see. "Oi! Jamesie! Love of my life!"

Remus felt a wide grin form on his face as he watched Sirius gesticulating madly to (apparently) James, beginning to feel that comfortable, indescribable sense of belonging and happiness that his friends' company provoked. It was so easy to ignore his hurts in their loud, exhilarating presence. Or so it felt, until the four Gryffindor boys had regrouped at last in an empty compartment near the back of the train, and dove into an eager conversation about Hogsmeade.

"It'll be so great to ditch the castle for a few weekends, won't it? I mean, my mother told me all about the village, what with Zonko's Joke Shop, and Honeydukes, and all that," James gushed, his hazel eyes wide with thoughts of the damage he could wreak on an unassuming Hogsmeade- or so a wry Remus suspected.

"Ah yes, Zonko's, haven of all mischief makers, or so I've been told," Sirius grinned, then winked at Peter, lowering his voice mysteriously. "But you know what I'm really looking forward to visiting? Britain's most haunted location, the Shrieking Shack, home to ghouls and ghosties-" he leaned in to a frightened Peter "- and banshees!"

Peter squeaked, then looked at Sirius reproachfully as James snorted with laughter. Remus, however, felt far from laughter. In fact, he felt distinctly ill at the thought of Sirius having any actual interest in the Shack. If there was one place Remus would avoid at all costs on a weekend outing, it was his monthly haunt.

"You alright, Remus?" James asked, looking concerned at his friend's sudden silence and overcast expression. Remus nodded, and made an effort to lighten his appearance, but James took the cue to change the direction of conversation, and rummaged around in his trunk for something, commanding the others to wait. Remus hoped James had suspected him of some secret fear of banshees and of nothing else.

"Gotcha!" James cried triumphantly, pulling what Remus recognised with dread as a Pocket Sneakoscope from somewhere in the depths of his trunk.

He had seen these before. He had seen how they reacted around unsavoury persons, not to mention dark creatures like himself. Remus thought for a moment at how Sirius would laugh if Remus pronounced himself a dark creature, but was distracted by a tinny whistle, and an exclamation from James.

"Hold on, why's it going off? Must be broken or something."

Sirius looked with interest at the Sneakoscope, but spared a withering glance at James. "Maybe you shouldn't have nicked it from your parents, eh? Maybe it's reacting to your general thieving nature."

"Nah, I took it ages ago, it shouldn't react to that. Maybe it's reacting to your disguise."

"What disguise?" Sirius snorted.

"Well, with all that makeup cloaking your true appearance, you could be anyone."

As the two boys scuffled on the floor, and Peter cheered them on, Remus reached for the abandoned Sneakoscope, which lay on the empty seat, still spinning and whistling. He knew he shouldn't feel affronted by its detection devices, but he kept wondering at the prejudice of the wizarding world, and-

"Ow!"

Sirius and James stopped fighting abruptly, each with a tuft of the other's hair in a fist, their mouths open in surprise. Peter had snapped his head to stare at Remus in shock. Remus tried to laugh, shaking his hand out like it was nothing, like it was a joke that the Sneakoscope, nothing more than a stupid Auror invention that didn't work half the time, had burned his palm.

With his free hand, James grabbed for the spinning Sneakoscope that had been dropped to the floor, and held it, unharmed, staring from it to the crimson patch burnt into Remus' palm in confusion. "It shouldn't do that," he said vaguely.

"Ha, I guess it- it didn't like me," Remus laughed shakily, hiding his injured hand behind his back and staring at the floor.

"We ought to drop that down Snape's pants," Sirius joked weakly, but he looked as shocked as James. "You okay, Remus?"

"I'm fine," Remus said shortly, and stepped over his friends to the compartment door, sliding it open abruptly and escaping with a mumbled explanation about needing the bathroom, hearing a muffled, "Merlin," as he shut the door. He stood there for a moment, staring down in shock at his blistering palm, hoping vainly that the others would dismiss it as an accident, the result of a faulty Sneakoscope, and nothing more.

"Had a good summer, Remus?"

Remus snapped his head up at the sound of the greeting, and thrust his hand behind his back as a fellow Gryffindor, Lily Evans, stepped down the passage towards him with a smile.

"Oh hi, Lily, yeah, it was okay," he mumbled, trying to gather himself, making a valiant effort to produce a smile.

Lily gave him a strange look. "Are you feeling okay?"

Remus wondered if he was setting some record for the number of times he'd be asked that question today, and nodded to Lily, who stopped beside him outside the compartment.

"They're not giving you any trouble, are they?" she asked seriously, and Remus managed to produce a real grin at Lily's attitude. She sounded as if she would actually take on both Sirius and James if they had indeed been bothering Remus.

"Course not. How were your holidays?"

Lily sighed. "Interesting, I suppose you could call them. Or maybe just plain painful for the whole family. My sister is extremely- she's an extreme muggle, you could say. I think she truly hates me." Lily seemed to suddenly remember who she was talking too, and broke off with a forced laugh. "But, you know, apart from that bit of sunshine, it was brilliant."

"It's okay," Remus said uncomfortably. It was strange to be privy to somebody else's problems, and some selfish part of him always seemed to whisper that nothing could compete with his own rather lofty problem. However, here he found himself able to relate to Lily. He knew about difficult families all too well, after all. "Really, I mean it. My… my holidays weren't so great either."

Remus watched, somehow disconcerted, as a small smile crept onto Lily's face. Tentatively, he smiled back.

"You know what always makes me feel better?" she said lightly, digging in her coat pocket for something, smiling as Remus shook his head in confusion. She drew out a bar of muggle chocolate, wrapped in bright purple, and Remus felt himself break into a reluctant grin. He held out a hand as she broke off a few squares.

"Thanks," he said appreciatively, but dropped his hand as soon as he saw the shocked look on Lily's face. He had completely forgotten the Sneakoscope burn. Weakly, he offered an explanation of his terrible cooking skills, and tried to grin as he turned to walk off down the passage.

"Wait," Lily said suddenly. Remus turned back, worried. "You forgot your chocolate, silly."

She grabbed Remus' uninjured hand, placing the chocolate in his palm, and they both smiled uneasily.

As Remus plodded back towards the compartment he had just vacated, hoping that the others had lost interest in the 'defective' Sneakoscope, he could feel Lily's eyes stapled to his back. He needed sleep. He needed some form of salve for his burnt hand. He needed the casual banter between Sirius and James to distract him from his problem, and make him feel normal again.


	2. Boggarts and Bigotry

**A/N: Hello, gentle readers! I hope you're enjoying the story so far. Please take the time to leave me a review when you've finished the chapter. I am so very needy, you see. :p**

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"Oi, er, Remus!"

Remus looked up in surprise at the sound of his name. He stopped short in the middle of the corridor as his eyes fell on a gesturing Hagrid, who was trying to beckon him discreetly from the doorway of an empty classroom. Unfortunately, being discreet at Hagrid's considerable size was difficult, and Remus had to pull away from an inquisitive Sirius and James before he could edge through the bustling crowd of students and reach the gamekeeper.

"Er, hello," he said quietly, allowing himself to be pulled into the classroom, and tried to meet Hagrid's smile with one of his own. To tell the truth, Remus felt vaguely nervous. He had never so much as spoken to Hogwarts' new gamekeeper since Hagrid's appointment to the position in Remus' first year.

Both Sirius and James had made particular efforts to get to know the giant of a man, convinced that the Hogwarts gamekeeper would have access to unfathomable supplies of mischief-making materials. However, as they had reported to Remus and Peter, it seemed that Hagrid was more involved in raising a puppy than in creating magical mayhem. This had rather raised the gamekeeper in Remus' estimation, but he knew nothing more of Hagrid.

Until this moment, Remus had believed that Hagrid was similarly oblivious to his existence. Whatever could the gamekeeper want with him?

Hagrid cleared his throat, tugging on his black tangle of a beard in what appeared to be some discomfort, and gazed down at Remus with crinkling black eyes.

"Yeh look a good sort," he muttered, as if to himself, "and Dumbledore's a great man, accommodatin' like. Fang'll like it too. Well, why not," he said in a louder voice, startling Remus somewhat, who was beginning to wonder what on earth Dumbledore had to do with this rather awkward meeting. "Yeh can call me Hagrid, by the way."

Remus nodded, mystified, but offered a small smile to the beaming gamekeeper.

"If yeh like, yeh should drop down to me cabin after your lessons today. I hear yeh- yeh get along with _dogs_ fairly well, and my Fang'd like ter meet yeh."

Remus started as Hagrid gave him an enormous wink and left the classroom abruptly, his moleskin overcoat whipping around the corner before there was a chance to say anything further. As his stomach began to ache with a familiar dread, Remus leaned back heavily against a nearby desk and stared at the door. There was no doubt in his mind that somehow Hagrid knew his secret. But why on earth would the gamekeeper want to have tea with a werewolf?

And what kind of dog was Fang, anyway?

* * *

"He's an enormous boarhound," Sirius explained casually, propping his enormous black boots on the desk and grabbing at James' neck to regain his balance. The black-haired boy ignored James' gurgled sounds of protest. "A simply massive puppy. Looks vicious, but attacks only with his tongue. I wholeheartedly approve."

"You would," muttered James as he ripped Sirius' hands from around his neck and tipped his friend backwards. Remus cringed.

"Oi," Sirius said indignantly from the floor, ignoring the fact that his chair had splintered, and glared at James. "There's nothing wrong with dogs, okay?"

"Dogs I can deal with," James said dryly. "Fang is something else. He's like a giant… a giant, insane, evil beast, with a twelve-foot long tongue and- and muddy paws!"

Sirius snorted. He smoothed his black hair and placed his arms behind his head, crafting a perfect image of disdain. "So Hagrid made you give him a bath. It was understandable really. You tried to ride him into the lake. No wonder his paws were muddy, you nonce."

James crossed his arms haughtily. "I was embarking on a noble quest to slay the Giant Squid, remember? You were right there next to me. And I _told_ you we should have used my broomstick instead. It handles better, anyway."

"You and your broomstick," Sirius drawled, rolling his eyes and earning a kick in the shin from his bespectacled friend.

"Broomsticks," intoned a dry voice from above them all, "have little to do with boggarts, Black and Potter, unless your greatest fear involves sweeping the dungeons in detention later this evening. I suggest you return to your seats and studies immediately if you wish to avoid this."

Remus, hurriedly reaching for his parchment and quill at the sound of Professor Webb's disapproval voice, cringed as he awaited his friends' predictable response. He was not disappointed.

"Our greatest fear," Sirius began, a winning smile evident in his earnest tone, "is your dissatisfaction, Professor." He nudged James with his toe rather obviously as he mended the broken chair with a casual flick of his wand.

James kicked him in response, before smiling beguilingly at Professor Webb. "Indeed, to suggest that we meant to disrupt the class is quite _riddikulus_."

Remus sighed inwardly as their Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor succumbed to James' terrible pun. He never knew whether to be relieved, amused or disgusted by the ease with which his friends extracted themselves from trouble in class.

"I am mollified by the knowledge that some of my students pay attention in their reading, if not in class," Professor Webb declared from the front of the classroom. "For those who have been listening, facing a boggart in today's practical lesson will be a simple matter. Wands out, please."

As the class shuffled to their feet, wands clasped nervously in their hands, Remus stared at the rattling desk near the front of the room with that familiar heavy feeling of dread. His worst fear appeared all too often in the night's sky. Surely his lycanthropy would be immediately evident to any of his classmates when they saw that his boggart was the pale, shining face of the full moon…

A sharp nudge from Sirius distracted Remus from his growing trepidation, and he glanced at his friend, who stared back at him with an expression of concern.

"You alright, mate?" Sirius asked, frowning. "You've gone all pale."

Remus choked out a laugh, coughed in an effort to sound more normal, and ended up having to suppress a hiccough. "I'm fine," he wheezed finally, flapping his fingers at Sirius, turning red as he realised that Professor Webb had once more adopted a disapproving stance at the end of his desk.

"It's more of a flick of the wand at shoulder height, Lupin," she said calmly, "but if you continue talking in my class, you may find yourself trapped in the desk with the boggart and without your wand."

"They say fear is the quickest way to get rid of the hiccoughs," whispered James conspiratorially, before winking at Professor Webb, who pointedly ignored him, returning swiftly to the front of the class.

"Form a line, please," she ordered, and the class shuffled backwards as one, leaving a startled Peter alone at his desk, his fellow students flocked a step behind him.

"Er," he stammered, but Professor Webb had charmed the top drawer open without ceremony before he could construct a useful sentence.

The class gasped as one as a long, mahogany coffin suddenly blocked Professor Webb's desk from view, looming from a shadow that seemed to ripple outwards from the corners of the room. Remus, whose heart was pounding in his chest, could see that the coffin lid hung open, but only Peter was close enough to have the chance of viewing what lay within.

As long tendrils of darkness reached his untidily-tied sneakers, Peter let out a broken cry and threw his arms in front of his face. Remus reached forwards instinctively to help his friend, and as he leaned closer to Peter, his eyes flew wildly across to the open coffin. And then he saw.

It was sickening. It was Peter, white, limp, dead, stretched out in the coffin. Only his firm grasp of the real Peter's shirt allowed Remus any sense of reality in the face of this terrible image. He swallowed, turning himself and his friend away, coming to face the rest of the class, the horror on Sirius and James' faces echoing his own.

"Well," said Professor Webb, as she strode quickly passed Remus and a terrified Peter, "well, another volunteer please." Remus noted, his shock fading, that she completely ignored the boggart's projection of her own worst fear, flicking her wand and transforming a prowling Grim into a scampering puppy with a sound like a whip-crack.

At Professor Webb's impatient prompting, Percival Walton stepped forward, wielding his wand at shoulder height with such tension that it looked to Remus as though the Slytherin's weedy arm had frozen into place.

"Wonder what Walton's worst fear is?" Remus heard Sirius sneer to James in a whisper. "Carpal tunnel syndrome?"

Remus only had the time to wonder fleetingly at Sirius' awareness of the muggle medical condition before Walton's boggart took shape. In an instant, all of Remus' tentative composure collapsed as a terrible howling rent through the classroom's sudden silence. Clutching his hands to his ears in agony, in sympathy, in horror, Remus staggered blindly backwards, eyes squeezed shut. Through growing numbness, he dimly registered that he could move no further. His back was plastered to the classroom wall. Without opening his eyes, he slid silently to the floor.

The allure of that familiar howl was unbearable. Why, in the absence of a full moon, did Remus feel the urge to submit, to transform, to join his fellow werewolf in hunt? Self-disgust flooded through his slumped body, flaring with a sudden host of ghostly sensations, half-memories from moonlit nights. These were shadows of agonies banished by daylight, but summoned and renewed under the pale watch of each full moon.

Unconsciously, he itched at old scars, hidden carefully beneath layers of cloth.

"Oi, stop that," a familiar voice whispered roughly into his ear, and Remus flinched as a hand grabbed at his arm. He was able to wrench open his eyes purely due to carefully honed willpower. He stared, with renewed panic, at Sirius' expression of apprehension, and forced himself to draw deeper, painful breaths. He suddenly realised that the howling from the front of the classroom had stopped.

"Is he alright?" James asked quietly, crouching next to Sirius and glancing quickly behind him before focussing his attention on Remus, who was consumed by a new fear.

"I- I felt faint," he stammered, wiping sweat from his forehead and attempting to straighten. He gave no protest as both Sirius and James pushed him straight back against the wall, but tried to look past his friends, stricken by anxiety.

"Nobody noticed but us, mate," James muttered, trying to look reassuring, though his concern was obvious. "They're all gawking at whatever the boggart turned into after that werewolf."

"Pretty horrible, wasn't it?" Sirius said lightly, obviously under the impression that Remus' reaction had been galvanised by the appearance of the werewolf. He had hit the nail on the head there, Remus knew- but Sirius couldn't know why.

"Terrifying," James shuddered, seating himself next to Remus, and resting his head against the wall. "Wouldn't want to meet one of those after dark."

"Wouldn't be dark, would it?" Sirius said dryly. "Being a full moon and all."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," James responded, and reached for his friend in what could have turned into a typical tussle (much to Remus' heartfelt relief) when a shadow fell over the three. They all looked up simultaneously. Remus could almost summon a smile when he heard Sirius' low groan.

"Comfortable?" Professor Webb asked, her tone decidedly lacking in benevolence. "Black, I believe it must be your turn to face the boggart."

Sirius pulled a face for the benefit of Remus and James, and rose leisurely from his crouched position to follow Professor Webb to the front of the classroom.

"Your worst fear isn't a werewolf, is it, Black?" Professor Webb sighed. "I've had quite enough of this class' hysterics."

Sirius didn't respond; instead, he pulled his wand out of his pocket and stepped confidently towards the boggart, which immediately transformed from the Bloody Baron into-

Remus slowly climbed to his feet, his fear having drained away in the presence of his friends. Clambering over James, he moved slightly forward, peering to the front of the room, suddenly overcome with curiosity. What could Sirius, the confident mischief-maker, the poised, pompous Black, possibly have to fear?

His eyes widened as he took in the scene that had appeared before Sirius, who was watching, motionless, his wand hanging loosely in a limp hand.

There, in front of Sirius, stood two figures, both of whom seemed to be aiming their wands at some kind of tapestry. A tall woman with black hair and a familiar nose had her arms clutched about someone's shoulders, someone who joined in the woman's cruel laughter. With a shock, Remus saw that it was Sirius. As the class watched silently, boggart-Sirius turned to the tapestry, raised his wand, and began blasting names from what appeared to be an embroidered family tree, laughing all the while.

Without so much as lifting his wand, real-Sirius whirled away from the terrible scene and stormed past his fellow students, slamming the door behind him. He had not even glanced at Remus or James, who now stared at each other, James still propped against the wall.

"I'll go find him," Remus said, and not even waiting for James' nodded response, left the classroom, ignoring Professor Webb's remonstration. Once outside, he glanced both ways down the corridor, and just caught sight of a black cloak sweeping around the corner before it disappeared. He hurried down the corridor and turned the corner, grasping Sirius' elbow from behind when he came into reach.

"Get off!"

Hurt, and full of concern for his friend, Remus fell back slightly, matching the length of Sirius' stride from behind. He shook his head, still confused by the scene that the boggart had produced in the classroom. Sirius had never been willing to talk about his family, or the time he spent at home during the holidays, but Remus could hardly reconcile the boggart-apparition with his own imagined portrait of the Blacks.

"Are you okay, Sirius?" he asked quietly, feeling strongly the irony that he of all people should ask this question of someone else. When Sirius came to a sudden halt in front of him, Remus reached out and placed his hand on his friend's back, trying to provide some comfort.

"Don't talk to me," Sirius bit out, shaking Remus' arm from his shoulder and continued stalking down the corridor. "You of all people wouldn't get it."

A mixture of bitter anger and worry collided in Remus' stomach, creating a rush of feeling that set his shoulders back and sent him hurrying down the corridor after his friend. What fear did Remus not understand? What had he not faced, locked in a battered shed next to a lake that glittered eerily beneath a swollen moon?

"And what wouldn't I get?" Remus asked calmly, forcing down swells of resentment. He reminded himself of the futility of bitterness. He had to do this often.

Sirius stopped once more, and pivoted, his face set in a mask of rage, but Remus could sense the fear behind the anger. His intimacy with fear had become like a sixth sense.

"You must be the ideal son, Remus," Sirius hissed. "You're studious, you're polite, you don't get into trouble, you're in an honourable bloody House. You're probably everything they could want you to be."

Despite himself, Remus responded with a dry, hollow laugh. Sirius' glare barely faltered.

"I've never met your parents, Remus. They're probably great people. They probably love you, don't they? They're probably bloody proud of you."

"You know what, Sirius?" Remus exploded, clenching his fists as the finely tuned balance of his nerves collapsed, bolstered by the fear he had suppressed during Defence Against the Dark Arts. "You're talking absolute bollocks. You have no idea what my parents are like. You have no idea if they're proud of me."

Remus barely noticed that Sirius' rage had dropped, leaving shock and the remnants of fear lining his handsome face. All Remus could feel was the heat of his anger; but in the ensuing silence, even that faded, leaving the old numbness, that old retreat. His breathing quietened, but he continued staring at Sirius.

When Remus finally spoke again, his voice was quiet and strained.

"You don't even know me."

For a moment, the two boys remained motionless, facing each other stiffly, each with shuttered eyes. But, as Remus had known, this could not last, and soon he was being drawn into a rough hug by Sirius. He made no protest.

"M'sorry," Sirius muttered into Remus' shoulder, "Shouldn't've said that, I'm sorry."

The rarity of such an apology suddenly hit Remus, and he felt the iciness that had gathered about him begin to melt and become warmth, the warmth that his friends could always generate.

They stood there in the corridor for what seemed like a very long time. Remus held his arms tightly about Sirius, becoming more comfortable with the unfamiliarity of the embrace in the knowledge that his friend needed this contact, this support. When at last Sirius roughly shoved him away, Remus didn't mind. He knew Sirius too well.

"What's your greatest fear, anyway?" Sirius asked curiously, his arm slung companionably about Remus' shoulders as they walked down the corridor together towards the Gryffindor portrait hole. "Sneakoscopes?"

Remus chuckled, and then joined Sirius in laughing, suddenly able to remember the incident on the Hogwarts Express without cringing with anxiety. He swiped at the back of Sirius' head, dodging a returning blow, and the remainder of his worries seemed to effervesce as afternoon sunlight filtered through dusty windows and lit the corridor ahead.

* * *

"I always wanted a dragon, yeh know," Hagrid said conversationally, thrusting his shaggy head into the depths of a cupboard. "Where's that blasted teapot? Ah, here we are," he announced with satisfaction, and pulled out said crockery, turning back to Remus with a smile.

"A dragon?" Remus asked, with vague misgiving. "What would you do with one of those?" He jumped slightly as Hagrid laughed, plonking the teapot gracelessly on the table, and waved his enormous hands around his small cabin.

"Raise 'im as a pet, 'o course," he said, a dreamy expression evident through his beard, "give Fang a bit 'o company. What I wouldn't do for just one little dragon egg…"

Remus almost smiled. What an incredible aspiration for a man who lived in a small wooden cabin. Almost as amazing as a werewolf graduating from Hogwarts, a bitter voice whispered inside his head.

Remus' smile faded, and he found himself nodding in sympathy to a story of Hagrid's dismay as a boy in discovering that dragons were banned as pets. Remus knew all too well the weight that crushed hopes maintained throughout the years.

"It's all wizard prejudice, yeh know," Hagrid said suddenly, shooting a sidelong glance at Remus, who stopped nodding abruptly. "Most people don' know nothing'. An' they don' try to learn, either. Some people…"

Remus' discomfort transformed into dismay as the giant of a man paused to give an enormous sniff and swipe roughly at his eyes. What had this conversation turned into?

"Some people," Hagrid continued bravely, "think that size, or- or certain… characteristics-"

"Such as the ability to breathe fire," Remus inserted with a shaky laugh, his eyes dropping to the floor as Hagrid straightened, and stared back at him with an intensity that made him wish that he was invisible.

"Yeh should never be ashamed of what yeh are, Remus," Hagrid said, his voice dropping in tone, moving to stand right beside the hunched boy. "Me Dad told me that, an' I kept holding to that through some o' the worst moments of my life."

Slowly, Remus raised his head and met Hagrid's serious gaze with his own. A silent moment passed as each weighed the other up. Both knew what the other was. After the conversation that had just taken place, there was not a doubt in Remus' mind of the nature of Hagrid's identity as a half-giant.

Neither turned away.

Finally, Hagrid smiled. "He's a great man, Dumbledore. Took me in as gamekeeper when I could've been left alone, with nothin' for me in the world. It isn't what yeh are that matters to 'im, it's _who_, and yeh gotta remember that, Remus. Yeh gotta."

Hagrid pulled away, affixing a great floral apron about himself as he bustled about the kitchen, picking up the teapot once more.

"Tea?"

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**STUDY QUESTIONS**

**1. All seems misery and pain to Remus, but what do you think is the coolest thing about being a werewolf? **

**2. Who would win in a fight: vampire or werewolf?**

**Thanks for reading, **

**Froody**


	3. Spars, Schemes, and Scars

**A/N: This one's short and sweet - or rather, angsty and abrupt. Thanks to those who responded to my 'study questions' for the last chapter. Your input, as you shall see, was gratefully adapted.**

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"So who'd win in a fight?"

Remus lolled back against a broad oak, closing his eyes to the glare of mid-morning sunlight. He had long since stopped contributing to his friends' conversation. Besides the subject matter being (predictably) inane, his opinion never seemed to stand fast against James' adamant assertions and Sirius' obstinacy. No; Remus was quite content to pass a quiet morning ignoring his friends, as he had on so many other occasions.

"What, out of a mandrake and the Whomping Willow?"

Remus heard Sirius' irritated exhalation. "No Peter. We solved that one. Last week, remember?"

"Oh, right. That tree's got a mean left-hook, doesn't it?"

"The mandrake flew straight into the lake, screaming all the way," Sirius reminisced happily. "Hope the Giant Squid was wearing earmuffs."

James snickered. "Next, can we try the Whomping Willow versus Snape?"

Sirius laughed, and there was a silence as, Remus presumed, the three boys turned to observe the Slytherin, who sat hunched over a book at the edge of the lake, scribbling without pause.

"I'm going to test that out some day," Sirius murmured. "But come on, answer my question: who would win, a werewolf or a vampire?"

Sprawled against the tree, Remus stiffened.

"The vampire, obviously," James said lazily. "A werewolf can only transform during the full moon. Any other night, it would be completely vulnerable. And anyway, vampires are hot."

"The only thing sexier than a werewolf is a zombie," Peter stated promptly, glancing eagerly at James for a sign of amusement.

Remus watched through slitted eyes, trying to be amused, as Sirius grabbed James by the front of the shirt and yanked him close.

"Oh, zombie James, I've given you my heart, but all you want are my brains."

"Who'd want your brains?" James scoffed, shoving Sirius away.

"And vampires have fangs," Peter added quickly, before the boys could begin to grapple properly, "and they can fly."

"Of course you'd agree with Jamesie, wouldn't you, Pete?" Sirius sighed. "But me, I'd go for the werewolf. Fangs are nothing against claws."

"Drag either into the sunlight and you'd have a very boring contest," James noted dryly, collapsing next to Remus, his head resting on a protruding tree root. "At least a vampire is effective on every night of the lunar cycle."

"Vampires are undead," Remus said softly, opening his eyes. He could no longer pretend to be unaffected by this conversation. He shifted slightly in order to be able to see James' serene face, comfortably propped in shadow.

"So?"

"Werewolves are people. People don't want to be 'effective' every night of the lunar cycle."

"I thought you were scared of werewolves, Remus," Sirius teased, smirking up at his friend from his reclined position on a sunny patch of grass. "Remember Defence last week? You practically fainted when that boggart started howling."

Remus flushed hotly, though determined to maintain an appearance of calm. "I'm not scared of werewolves, Sirius."

"Nothing to be ashamed of, mate," James said soothingly, "and besides, you weren't exactly alone in your quaking boots. Half the class seemed ready to run out the door."

"I almost wet myself," Peter added rather unhelpfully. "That howling just tears into you, doesn't it?"

You have no idea, Remus thought grimly to himself. He sat up straight abruptly, squinting against the light, searching desperately for a distracting topic of conversation. Better they think him mortally afraid of werewolves than have them suspect otherwise.

A sudden movement from James drew Remus' attention, and his heart sank a little at the sight of that familiar expression on his friend's face. Here was the surest sign of a prank in formation, that calculating look of intelligence and mischief. Remus didn't need to take Divination to predict that whatever madness followed was going to end badly.

"You've thought of something for Halloween, haven't you?" Sirius asked with delight, and rolled onto his stomach so that he could pay full attention to his enlightened friend. "It has to be good this year. Regulus needs a special introduction to our little tradition."

Remus sighed to himself. Halloween was James and Sirius' favourite celebration. Their methods of celebrating tended to be explosive, much more terrifying than any hairy or skeletal decoration strung around the castle by an enthusiastic Hagrid. Since the beginning of term, Remus had been dreading this moment, when the inevitable plotting would begin.

James cleared his throat, wafting his hands affectedly through the air, as if calling for silence. Remus saw Sirius rolling his eyes as Peter twitched forward eagerly, and smiled despite himself.

"Inspiration has finally struck me, my friends. Beneath this most fruitful oak tree has sprouted the bud of a prank so insidious that it must surely ensnare all those who attend our most austere academy. What is Halloween, my friends, but a festival of fear, a feast of fright, a fiesta of- of-"

Sirius prodded James in the side with a long stick that he'd somehow procured, prompting the bespectacled boy to pause in his alliteration and smack the stick away.

"Anyway, if werewolves scare Remus and Peter so much, the entire school should go mad if we borrow Fang on Halloween, extinguish all the candles in the Great Hall, and charm him to howl!"

"Excellent!" Sirius cried with relish, jabbing the stick skyward in victory. "Halloween's a full moon, isn't it?"

"Indeed it is," James grinned, and the two boys rolled towards each other, quickly producing a piece of parchment and a quill and beginning to scrawl away madly. Peter scrambled to his knees and peered over their shoulders, squeaking every so often in excitement.

Remus stared down into the icy blue depths of the lake unseeingly. Suddenly cold, he pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around himself. He had forgotten that the 31st of October coincided with the full moon this year. What a cruel joke that werewolves should be incorporated into his friends' annual Halloween prank.

Remus mentally slapped himself for not having diverted the conversation further to something relatively harmless, like Basilisks, or dragons. Despite his internal tumult, he almost smiled. If a dragon had been involved in the prank, Hagrid would almost certainly have been willing to give them a hand in their mischief-making. His amusement drooped as thoughts of Hagrid reminded him of Fang's role as a make-shift werewolf.

Why on earth had he befriended two of the brightest students in Hogwarts? What sly fate had led him to become close to two of the most prying pranksters in the school's history? And how, in Merlin's name, had he been able to keep his lycanthropy a secret from James and Sirius for more than two years?

Each successive transformation since his arrival at Hogwarts had filled Remus with a greater fear of being discovered. His monthly absence could scarcely fail to be noticed by his friends, whose suspicions had been satisfied only with long-winded tales of his family's history in irregular illnesses. Remus was very thankful to Peter, who pressed the others to support these excuses. It seemed that Peter belonged to a family of hypochondriacs, and could quite easily relate to Remus' fabrications.

More difficult, however, was explaining away the visible injuries that each visit to Remus' family seemed to produce. Long sleeves and a clandestine stash of his mother's foundation were his only defence until the shallow cuts would heal.

Remus forbade his friends from asking about his deeper scars. He pretended not to notice the staring of his fellow students whenever the inevitable happened, and his shirt rode up an inch, or his long hair was tussled unfortunately by the wind, or James transfigured articles of his clothing.

He pretended that they all laughed off the patchwork nature of his skin as a sign of his clumsiness, perhaps, or maybe an overly close encounter with a pet when a child. None of his friends had ever mentioned the network of shining scars that criss-crossed his back and arms. Remus pretended that his efforts at showering and changing in utmost privacy had been successful.

In his heart, he knew that James, Sirius and Peter had seen the scars. When all jokes had died down, and pranks had ceased, and a momentary peace held the four boys in silence, he could see the truth in the dark intensity of Sirius' eyes.

Remus was always first to look away.

In the bright, disorienting sunshine, his friends scribbled and snickered and squeaked in front of him. Remus sighed, swiping a hand over his eyes and, like normal, hating himself with no small measure. There was nothing for it. He would join his friends in their preparations for this unfortunate prank – though with the proper and unsuspicious degree of disapproval expected from him. Upon the arrival of Halloween morning, one of his family members would suffer some misfortune or illness (all of them being of a particularly weak constitution.) Like normal, Remus would be summoned away.

Unlike normal, however, the howls emerging from a startled Fang's snout would be echoed across the grounds. This Halloween, the swollen moon would receive the baying of two canines, although her cold eye would be turned from one of the creatures.

Remus could only pray that his friends' eyes, and minds, could be as easily diverted from his terrible secret.


	4. Trepidation of the Spheres

**A/N: Chapter title yoinked from John Donne's poem, "A Valediction: forbidding Mourning" - one of the most moving love poems you could ever read. Once again, thanks for reading & reviewing this story. Makes my day. :) I'm a bit proud of this chapter - hope you like it!**

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Inevitably – though most unfortunately, in Remus' eyes – Halloween morning arrived at Hogwarts. Black and orange leapt violently from the rails of staircases and the stone castle walls. The gaping mouths of giant pumpkins cackled as students passed gingerly.

Breakfast conversation was interrupted by the rhythmic rattling of a hoard of dancing skeletons. James and Sirius leapt atop the Gryffindor table and began to tap-dance in time, both winking roguishly at first a clapping Dumbledore, and then an appalled Remus. Pumpkin juice was spilled.

Nearly Headless Nick looked positively disgusted at the crassness of it all. As had become a Halloween tradition at the Gryffindor table, cheerful conversation was interrupted by a rather mournful Nick, who informed all who would listen that his Death Day deserved a classier celebration than a "crew of clattering corpses".

"A Saturday!" Sirius had exclaimed ecstatically, back in the relative safety of the plotting stages. "No classes! We'll have all day to prepare our cunning scheme!"

"Nobody," James, had sighed, "takes the word 'cunning' and matches it with the word 'scheme' these days, Sirius. It's such a gauche, uninspired expression. Don't our pranks deserve more?"

"You sound like Professor Lupin back there," Sirius had replied, most insulted, not gaining any brownie points from Remus. "May we now return to our wily plot?"

A cautious two steps behind his friends, Remus had snorted quietly at James' easy hypocrisy. Unfortunately, both black-haired boys had an extraordinary vocabulary, and seemed to enjoy spouting ridiculous phrases at every opportunity.

"What now, Remus?" Sirius had cried with false exasperation, spinning to face his friend. "How would you describe our covert and devious activities?"

"Mad marauding?" Remus had suggested with a hint of a smile. Despite the promise that he'd made to himself – and to the others, loudly, no less – he couldn't help being involved in the preparations for the upcoming prank. Not when he was subjected to wheedling, and bribing, and threatening, and the other attentions that were inevitably rendered to him in the immediate period before a complicated prank.

He couldn't refuse his friends' requests. Any disapproval directed at him reminded Remus that he had never had friends before Hogwarts, and that he was extremely fortunate to have anyone at all to beseech him in the name of blood promises past. Without fail, acquiescence eventually burst from his treacherous mouth, no matter how truly bizarre or dangerous the consequences.

And so Remus came to be seated in Hagrid's small, cosy cabin after breakfast on Halloween morning, Fang's enormous, slobbery snout resting heavily on the lap of his formerly clean robes. As Remus stroked Fang's velvety ears distractedly, he continuously glanced around Hagrid to the window, waiting anxiously for the signal that would let him know that all was ready.

How had James and Sirius managed to persuade him to do this? Remus sighed heavily. But, of course, the answer was obvious. They had asked him to do it.

"Not me," James had said promptly, "not after the lake incident." Silently, the four shared a collective wince at the memory, although a grin soon reappeared on James' face. He looked at Sirius expectantly.

"Oh, I don't think so."

"But you love dogs!" Peter had exclaimed, quickly lowering his head in order to convey his extreme disinclination to perform the task.

"Yeah, dogs are great. But if I took even one step towards Fang, Hagrid would nab me in a second, and you all know it," Sirius had explained, looking rather disappointed. James nodded reluctantly, and the two boys had gazed thoughtfully at each other.

Remus became afraid.

Sure enough, the discussion was quickly closed. The decision was firm and unanimous. Remus' head-shaking and muttering of the negative did not even register. Seated in the cabin, he shook his head and silently scolded his frailty.

When would that blasted signal come?

A tight fist of guilt squeezed Remus' stomach constantly like a decidedly queasy stress ball. The others had assured him that he was the perfect candidate for the job, being in Hagrid's good books for whatever mysterious reason. It was in order to disperse his friends' suspicious looks at this point of the persuasion that Remus had reluctantly agreed, but not without plentiful retrospective regret.

Ultimately, his friendship with Hagrid was unique. They were joined by the nature of their circumstances. But, of course, it was more than that; Remus owed more to Hagrid than a shared misery. The giant of a man knew his secret, and accepted him nonetheless. Apart from Dumbledore, nobody at Hogwarts could claim the same, and Remus' appreciation for Hagrid's ready acceptance had been steadily growing since the gamekeeper's first approach.

And now Remus was to pointedly ignore Hagrid's kindness by participating in the kidnapping of his beloved canine. Well, surely the gamekeeper should have expected such treachery from a werewolf.

Remus was suddenly struck by glorious inspiration.

"You know what, Hagrid," he said abruptly, a mild smile lighting his pale face, "to tell you the truth, I'm quite amazed at how friendly Fang is towards me. Most animals shy away as readily as people once they- they know."

Hagrid beamed in delight, unconcerned at the sudden change of conversation, leaning forward and violently scratching an appreciative Fang behind the ears.

"He's a good dog, Fang," Hagrid affirmed, "a righ' good sort."

Over Hagrid's shoulder, Remus caught sight of a glorious spray of violet sparks, yet his smile only widened. He pointedly ignored his friends' 'subtle' signal.

"I reckon that some people would think that Fang was every bit as scary as a werewolf or a giant," Remus continued. "But he wouldn't look at a golden snitch the wrong way, would he?"

"Wouldn't harm a fly!" cried Hagrid, looking affronted.

"Today's Halloween, isn't it?" Remus said, twisting his face into a thoughtful expression, and tapped his forefinger on the table, letting his other hand settle on Fang's warm flank. When Hagrid nodded the affirmative, eyes still clouded in outrage at the apparent prejudice faced by his dog, Remus stopped tapping and slapped his hand melodramatically on the table.

He was really quite pleased with himself. He tried not to let his eyes slip to the window, and to the distracting view of his three friends attempting to hoist themselves into a nearby tree in order to see what was happening in the cabin.

"You should take Fang to the Halloween feast tonight," Remus stated decidedly, quickly continuing before Hagrid could begin to object. "I'm sure that Dumbledore wouldn't mind, you know, what with all the dancing skeletons and everything there already. And then you could show everyone how truly harmless and amiable Fang really is."

Remus watched, still twinging slightly with guilt, as Hagrid slowly nodded. Fortunately, as Remus' acting and persuading skills were fast running short, it didn't take much further effort to procure a promise from the gamekeeper to bring his hairy guest to the feast that night.

Gulping down a last mouthful of lukewarm tea, Remus stood, heaving Fang's head from his lap, and walked to the wooden door, farewelling Hagrid with slightly more gratitude than normal.

"Pleasure's mine," Hagrid assured him warmly, propping the door open with his left boot, and ushering Remus through. However, just as Remus stepped over the threshold, a cramping agony shot through his body, bending him over forcibly, gasping for breath. As Hagrid cried out in alarm, Remus grabbed at the doorframe and gripped into the wood until his white knuckles reddened.

The thudding of several pairs of sneakers colliding with dirt nearby was only met with a weak resignation by Remus, as nausea gradually replaced the biting pain.

"What's up with him?" he heard Sirius demanding heatedly, a worried edge in his voice. Remus jerked his head as he heard footsteps approaching.

"Don't- need- help," he gasped wretchedly, dredging up resolve, and pulled himself up, leaning heavily on the doorframe. His head spun warningly as he lifted his head, but luckily the nausea didn't rise. As he slowly regained control of himself, and managed to plaster a weak grin on his face, he raised his eyes to his friends.

"Should've let me eat breakfast this morning instead of tap-dancing through my toast," he croaked, rolling his eyes disparagingly at the others with no small effort.

It had been a year at least since the last time he had betrayed such weakness to his friends. Remus had always been so careful on the eve of a full moon. But never, in the past, had his friends tracked the lunar cycle with such eager glee. Never had werewolves been the subject of so many conversations during the waxing of the moon. And never had Remus allowed himself to be so distracted by pranks and guilt that he couldn't manage to hide the agonising cramps that always occurred the day before his transformation.

"You had two bowls of cereal," James said quietly, staring at Remus with obvious concern. "You ate mine when I wouldn't sit down, even though you complained that you were already full."

"I didn't require a coating of cereal quite so early in the morning," Remus muttered, almost falling over as Hagrid gave him a worried clap on the back.

"You're just a little under the weather, aren't yeh?" the gamekeeper said hurriedly, winking enormously at Remus, interrupting the awkward conversation. "You'll be righ' tomorrow, or soon enough, anyway."

The four boys walked slowly back up the sloping lawn to the castle, Remus having flatly refused to allow Sirius to either support or levitate him, accompanied by an unusual silence. Finally, immensely discomforted, Remus ventured an account of his success in persuading Hagrid to bring Fang to the feast that night.

"Ah," Sirius said knowingly, "a worthy diversion, that. It'll be harder to link this prank to us, now that we don't have to kidnap Fang ourselves."

"But I left twenty pounds of mince in the pumpkin patch!" James cried in frustration. "We spent so long on that sleeping draught, and now what? Hagrid's doing the dirty work for us?"

"Be grateful that I even took part in this prank," Remus said haughtily. "I'll have you know that this is the last time I will allow my name to be besmirched for one of your pranks."

"You can't hang out with us and expect to retain that image of purity, Remus," Sirius drawled, slinging an arm around his shoulder. "You're in with a bad crowd, you know."

"Yeah, your reputation's pretty much done for, Remus," Peter pitched in knowledgeably, panting a little as he struggled up the incline.

Remus shook his head and sighed in an exaggerated fashion, dodging the friendly punches aimed his way, and felt the ache in his side subside. The cramp had been but a shadow of what he was to face tonight, but here, in the presence of his friends, he could almost forget what he was, and what he was soon to face.

* * *

"Hey, where're you going?" Sirius demanded.

Remus stiffened. He tried not to let his face fall too obviously, and nervously rubbed his hand across his clammy forehead, attempting to look unsuspicious.

"I-I thought you'd already gone to Divination," he said, his voice false and cheery. It wasn't too difficult to mimic Sirius' revolted expression at the mention of the hated subject. "Wouldn't want to let Professor Nyx miss an opportunity to forecast your doom, right?"

Sirius rolled his eyes in disgust. "If I ever do get visited by the Grim, I will personally ensure that she gets an eyeful before I die."

Remus gripped the railing, and laughed briefly, starting forward as if to make his way past Sirius towards the Portrait Hole.

"Hey," Sirius said quietly, grabbing the sleeve of Remus' robes before he could walk past, and gently pulling the smaller boy around to face him. "Are you still feeling ill from this morning?"

With a small sigh, Remus tugged his sleeve free and raised his eyebrows wryly. "Something like that."

As Sirius kept staring at him worriedly, Remus paused, and wiped at his sweaty brow again, knowing that he wasn't going to be dismissed so readily. He shrugged slightly, and lowered his eyes before telling Sirius a variation of that old, familiar lie about his relative in St Mungos. He didn't have time to elaborate on the normal version, and continued down the stairs merely hoping that his story had been convincing.

He could feel the burn of Sirius' gaze on his back as he hurried through the Common Room.

There was no time. Already it was late afternoon, and Madam Pomfrey was always strict about punctuality on these occasions – as she should be, Remus acknowledged wearily. Add to this recent delay his pressing fatigue, and the residual feeling of nausea that had stayed with him since that morning, and Remus had barely been able to inject any sentiment into his conversation with Sirius.

He hoped that, like James and Peter, Sirius would be quickly distracted by delicious thoughts of the upcoming Halloween prank…

Remus shook his head slightly as he opened the Portrait Hole and clambered out. He wished them luck. He really did.

Remus just needed it more.

* * *

Pain. Steady, throbbing, burning pain. Even as he lay motionless, Remus' whole body ached from the very moment he came into consciousness. He did not have to open his eyes to know that last night's transformation had been particularly brutal.

No, his eyes would remain closed for as long as possible. Remus had long since learned, through years of agonising experience, that the initial suffering was far preferable to the nausea he would feel upon prying his eyelids open. Better just to lie there, still and silent like a corpse, wishing in vain for sleep to return.

Distractions in the Hospital Wing were few and far between. He was, of course, separated by thick cotton curtains from the other iron bedsteads, as no other student was allowed to know of his affliction. Gossip spread like wildfire through the student body. One glimpse of his ravaged form the night after a full moon would be as effective as standing on a table in the Great Hall and illustrating his lycanthropy through interpretive dance.

Momentarily forgetting his need to remain motionless, Remus smiled. This movement, however, proved too much, and his humour immediately dissolved into gasping pain. A poor reaction in hindsight, for his eyes automatically burst open as he coughed shallowly, and a roiling sensation of rising sickness gripped his insides.

Through red clouds of pain and nausea, Remus grasped desperately about his bed for a bedpan, a bin, anything, quickly – and brushed against some form of concave container just in time.

His muscles burned as his stomach heaved, and dizziness swelled behind his eyes as he convulsed forward, again and again. These were the moments that defined his weakness. These were the moments that confirmed, time and time again, the ugliness, the pain, the seclusion of lycanthropy. These were the moments that nobody could share or understand, or even pity. As he wretched, only one thought registered: he deserved it all.

Werewolf. Pain. Nausea. The full moon showed him for the monster he was, and punished him for it. A glowing orb mocked him still, even here and now, as he moaned in agony. You get what you deserve, werewolf. Enjoy your just deserts, and you can cry about it, because you are weak. Let your snot run into your vomit, werewolf, and shut your eyes from your own cowardice.

Eventually, Remus fell back against his pillows, exhausted. His limp body still heaved, but could produce nothing but tears now, salt tears that burned fiercely into his wounds. Through a haze of pain and fatigue, he heard his own gasping moans between sobs, and he hated himself for it.

Even now, tired as he was in every feasible way, sleep wouldn't capture him, offer him some escape from this hell. He had just begun to wonder why Madam Pomfrey hadn't come and started forcing vile potions down his throat when he heard her soft footsteps approaching his bed. His relief was palpable.

He didn't dare open his eyes as he heard his curtains being whisked gently open. It was only when he realised that the footsteps had stopped abruptly that his nausea began to share room in his stomach with building panic.

His worst fears were confirmed at what he heard next:

"Is he in there?" hissed an impatient voice from somewhere beyond the curtain.

Whoever was being addressed made no reply. Remus wondered if by keeping his eyes closed he could somehow magically convert this nightmare into a horrifying dream.

Any such hope died with finality as two more sets of footsteps padded lightly over to his bed as if tiptoeing. This time, Remus knew that the ensuing silence was the product of horror. With more courage than he would have believed he possessed, he slowly opened his eyes and prepared to face his friends' condemnation.

Three white, shocked faces gaped back at him. Dully, Remus noted that James had a handful of curtain crushed within his fist. He saw that the bowl of his vomit still rested between his knees, and remembered his tears with a fresh wave of shame. He attempted to reach for the bowl, to remove this damning evidence from sight, but fresh pain rippled through his body and gave a new bite to his nausea.

Remus bit his lip to hide his moan, but his movement seemed to have knocked his friends out of their shock, and he sank back fearfully as they all seemed to rush towards him.

"Remus-"

"Are you oka-"

"How could you hide this from us?"

It was Sirius' broken accusation that cut the others short. Remus gazed desperately towards his friend's darkening face, still somehow fighting against the knowledge that he had lost the only friends he had ever had. As the sudden silence seemed to become increasingly hostile, Remus shut his eyes and knew that he had to summon up the will and the energy to explain. He owed it to his friends.

He coughed feebly, and tried to remember how to speak.

"How- how did you find out?" he asked finally in a raspy, quiet voice. Unable to meet Sirius' accusing eyes, he gazed instead at the metal sheen of the bowl in front of him, resigned to see that he had acquired a new scar slashing across his hairline during the night. Dimly, he registered that he would have to grow his fringe longer from now on. His exhausted reverie was interrupted by James' hesitant, shaking response. Sirius, Remus supposed, was reluctant to converse further with a werewolf.

"Last night, before the feast, we – Sirius followed you out of the Common Room. And saw you meet with Madam Pomfrey in the Entrance Hall. He saw you go beneath the Whomping Willow. We- Fang came to the feast with Hagrid." James suddenly laughed, shakily, before lapsing back into his uncharacteristically hesitant explanation. "Fang was a brilliant were- I mean- he- howled, and I swear Snape wet himself, but Dumbledore just stood up and congratulated Hagrid on his talented pet, and then Fang stole a chicken from the teachers' table, you should've seen it, but- anyway. Sirius, I think, put two and two together, about you, I mean. You know, it was entirely obvious, anyway."

Remus, who had been contemplating pulling the bowl back towards him during James' convoluted speech, could have torn the hair out of his head in shame and utter wretchedness at this point. It was; it was entirely obvious that he was a werewolf, just look at him. What a coward. Couldn't even vomit in the appropriate receptacle.

James hurried on, his wide eyes dilating further in what was probably a reaction to the look on Remus' face.

"It was obvious, I mean, because, well, you've been away so often! So regularly. And with such terrible excuses, me and Sirius have been wondering for ages- well, it all just fit together so perfectly when Sirius realised, when Fang howled. The full moon was right up there, you know, on the ceiling of the Great Hall. We've been completely stupid, you know."

"Completely stupid," Remus repeated, his mouth dry and foul-tasting. Yes, they had all been completely stupid; them for accepting a werewolf into their friendship group, him for allowing them to get close to a dangerous monster.

"You idiot," Sirius suddenly spat, prompting the shocked regard of James and a trembling Peter. "You complete and utter prat."

Remus closed his eyes and prepared himself. This was it. This was the moment when they cast him out forever, and promised to tell the entire school that Dumbledore had been harbouring a werewolf amongst the students.

He peeped out of his blood-shot eyes as heavy footsteps thumped closer to his bed, and was stunned and vaguely horrified to see that Sirius was now leaning over him, gripping the iron bed frame with white knuckles. Remus flinched as the black-haired boy cursed violently, grabbing the befouled metal bowl and shoving it under the bed.

As Sirius straightened, he fixed the shivering Remus with a terrible glare. "You think that we're going to abandon you now, don't you," he glowered. "You think that we're going to cast out the werewolf who's been our friend for three whole years. You make me sick."

At this, Remus' world span sickeningly, and he was only able to keep his eyes open out of the strength of his own self-loathing. He deserved to pay full attention as his friends rejected him. He saw James rush forward and grab Sirius by the shoulder, his bespectacled face twisted with a mixture of anger, sorrow and pain that Remus understood perfectly. Sirius allowed himself to be manhandled, but continued, biting out the words as he stared contemptuously down into the bed.

"I come from a family of pure bloods, Remus," he continued harshly, "and you know what our family motto is? _Toujours pur_, my clever friend, 'always pure'. We can't stand mudbloods, you know-" he spat on the floor- "not to mention bloody werewolves. And you know what hurts me right now? The fact that you're classing me right back in with those intolerant bastards."

As Sirius stopped with a halting, pronounced finality, Remus stared right back into his stormy eyes. He could scarcely allow himself to register the meaning of Sirius' words. False hope now only led to further devastation later, but now James was grasping his hand, and pulling his protesting body up into a rough hug, and Remus flinched reactively as Sirius threw his arms around them both, pressing his cheek to Remus' clammy forehead.

"You prat," Sirius kept mumbling darkly, "you stupid prat," and then the bed sank further as Peter joined the others. Shock, and a desperate unwillingness to breathe, were the only things that held Remus together. Finally, he couldn't take it any more, and shoved the others aside, gesturing fiercely for his metal bowl.

A few, ghastly minutes later, as his nausea slowly subsided into a manageable queasiness, Remus was able to raise his head and stare, with renewed disbelief, at the assembled, compassionate faces of his friends. Sirius glared through his compassion, but Remus could feel it nonetheless.

"What do you want from me?" he finally mumbled, dropping his eyes to the multitude of scratches on the inside of his right wrist. He felt his hopes plummeting in the next silent moment, until James suddenly sat back on the bed, and reclined gracefully, folding his arms behind his back.

"Always wanted to meet a werewolf," he said conversationally, prompting Remus to scowl bitterly from the pillows beside him.

"No, you did not," he snapped, shoving his bandaged arms towards James with no small amount of pain. "I did this to myself. Think of what those claws could do to you."

James' casual demeanour evaporated immediately, and he sat back up, staring desperately at his angry friend.

"I'm so sorry, Remus. It must be hell, absolute hell, for you."

From behind Sirius, Peter nodded fervently, his eyes still bright with fear. Remus lowered his head, determined that his friends wouldn't see the truth of that statement reflected in his face. After a moment, James continued.

"We really don't care, Remus. You could be a- a- a-"

"A werewolf?" Remus said lightly, but feelingly. If his friends were going to make cavalier expressions of solidarity and stupidity, he wanted to ensure that these statements were rooted even slightly in truth.

"Merlin, you could be a Slytherin," James exclaimed, choking out a chuckle as Sirius' face twisted into an expression of disgust. "Alright, I wouldn't go that far, but you could be some pretty terrible things for all I care."

"Do you mean that?" Remus asked quietly. "You really can't understand what it is to be a werewolf. No matter what you think now, you can't imagine how dangerous I can be during the full moon."

"We want to find out," James said resolutely, "we are going to find out, because we are your friends, Remus. Why should you go through this alone every month? You look like hell, by the way," he added in a matter-of-fact tone, and Remus grimaced as Peter nodded his agreement. "And besides… I like dogs," he offered, smiling weakly.

"No you don't," Remus mumbled. "You despise muddy paws, remember?"

"Sure I like dogs," James objected. "I mean, aside from the fleas, and the stench, and the mud, and the slobber- oh, wait, I'm meant to be talking about dogs, not Sirius, right?"

Remus' heart sank as Sirius didn't even make a half-hearted response to James' feeble jibe. Sirius just stood there like an ominous statue, his eyes unreadable, fixed in a glare. It was only when Peter shoved past him to sit next to James on the bed that he seemed to be roused from his anger, and Remus would be forever grateful for that next moment, when he was joined in his bed by all three of his friends, all of whom knew his darkest secret, none of whom cared.

They just sat there in a companionable silence until Remus' throat, choked closed with unshed tears, could be cleared well enough to ask why Madam Pomfrey hadn't discovered them yet.

"Oh, Poppy?" James said breezily, examining his nails. "I think she mentioned something about the Slytherins, didn't she?"

"Yeah," Sirius responded, his gloomy face lit by a sudden burst of humour, "something about a skin condition, what was it again?"

Peter jumped for his cue. "They sprouted grey fur and started howling, didn't they?"

Even Remus joined in as the other three began to howl with a laughter that, though still slightly hysterical, was preferable to any of the other outcomes of this confrontation that Remus could ever dream of.


	5. Moony

"An animagus- a witch or wizard who is able to transfigure him or herself into an animal at will- must undergo an extremely difficult and dangerous process to achieve this ability. Indeed, there are only five official animagi listed on the Improper Use of Magic registry this century. I hope," McGonagall continued briskly, her stern tone lifting slightly as a rare smile appeared on her face, "to soon be the sixth."

"And transform into what," Sirius muttered darkly, "a bad-tempered dragon with tartan scales?"

While James snickered, slapping him a discreet high-five beneath their shared desk, Remus shook his head witheringly. He knew full well that Sirius had deserved the detention that McGonagall had awarded him at the beginning of class, but he knew with equal certainty that Sirius was unable to see grounds for such punishment.

"Shouldn't have transfigured her desk into a stuffed lion," Remus murmured quietly to himself, scratching his face absently with end of his quill as he studied his notes on animagi.

"What's that?" Sirius asked loudly, swivelling in his seat to stare at Remus with round eyes. "Do I sense a traitor in our midst?"

Remus slumped down in his seat, draping an arm about his face in order to avoid attention from his other classmates. He hated being singled out. He hated that Sirius could so offhandedly place his name and the word traitor in a sentence, even now, when the black-haired boy had to know how cautious Remus had to be to avoid all suspicion.

"I believe that our martyred friend is referring to your apparent lack of Gryffindor pride, my dear Remus," James broke in hastily, gifted with greater perceptivity than Sirius (which wasn't hard). Such saves, these days, were all too frequent.

Sirius harrumphed. Remus slid his arm aside so that he could peer forward cautiously, and was surprised to see that Sirius' attention was still firmly fixed on him. He supposed that he had somehow broken the fierce and noble bonds of the blood promise in such a manner as to deserve a share of the wrath that McGonagall usually held alone.

"Why d'you even bother taking notes, Remus?" Sirius asked, his expression quickly sliding from offended to vaguely curious. "Surely you, of all people, couldn't give a golden snitch about this transforming into animals thing."

Remus cringed, covered his face once more, and began scribbling nonsense into his notes with a slightly desperate grip on his quill. Two seconds later, when the nib broke, he threw the quill down and tried to wipe his sweaty hands surreptitiously on his robes, refusing to glance up at Sirius again. He was afraid that such a glance might quickly become a glare. Remus refused to lose his friends because of his lycanthropy, but any more of these 'slips' from Sirius…

"Actually, I think being an animagus would be really cool," Peter said suddenly, taking the stretching silence as a cue for his opinion on the subject. Remus felt the shudder of his desk as Peter scraped his chair forward from beside him, leaning heavily towards James and Sirius as he spoke. "Imagine if you really could turn into an animal at will."

"What would you want to be?" James asked, his voice falsely casual, eager, it seemed, to distract Remus and Sirius from their respective silences. "It'd be pretty cool to be able to fly, or something."

"Yeah, yeah, we know you love flying, James," Sirius contributed rudely. "Why don't you just transform yourself into a broomstick at will?"

"But who would ride him?" Peter questioned, gazing about in confusion as both Sirius and James began snorting with laughter at a joke that the smaller boy didn't understand. He released a giggle nervously, and glanced at Remus for confirmation.

Remus wasn't in the mood for crude humour. He was still inwardly seething at Sirius' disregard for the necessity of discretion on the subject of his lycanthropy. Although his face remained carefully blank, a skill honed through a lifetime of deception, this was only for the benefit of his three friends. While he concentrated on the scribbled information in front of him, he silently wished that McGonagall would put the current conversation to rest, as she was want to do.

"What's up with you today, Moony?" Sirius asked suddenly, having returned to his previous state of bored curiosity. Remus stiffened, broken from his careful state of concentration by Sirius' audacity. As he glared at his desk with narrowing eyes, as he heard James thwack Sirius on the back of the head, as his breathing quickened and his sweaty fists clenched, he felt the burning of pure, molten fury build in his stomach.

Moony? What kind of a nickname was that? What kind of an idiot threw about a name designed to destroy the carefully crafted world of a friend, whose tenuous facade as a human being relied on the fact that others never guessed his secret? And couldn't Sirius see how deeply Remus hated and feared the moon? Couldn't he guess that any reminder of the shining orb filled Remus with a dark and painful dread?

"Are you alright, Remus?" he heard an apprehensive Peter inquire. Remus couldn't move to make a response for fear of losing control, leaping over the desk and assaulting Sirius with his bare, bruised fists. Instead, he channelled his energy into thinking of Peter, the quiet friend, the one who wouldn't betray him so flippantly, the one who still seemed afraid that Remus could transform into a werewolf at any moment and massacre them all, but hung around with him nonetheless.

"Fine," he finally choked out, exhaling harshly, dimly aware of a building urge to breathe.

"It's not his time of the month for two weeks," Sirius told Peter in a stage-whisper, cupping his hand to his mouth for dramatic effect. Before Remus could even control himself enough to storm out of the classroom, Sirius' satisfied smirk disappeared. Both boys looked forward as a chair scraped roughly against the floor, silencing McGonagall's sharp voice at the front of the room.

"Potter, what are you-" she began, pushing her spectacles up her long nose with fury, but James interrupted.

"I just wanted to correct your statement from before, Professor," he stated coolly, refusing to look down at a puzzled Sirius, who had begun tugging on his robes questioningly. "Unfortunately, you will be the seventh animagus this century. Sirius has already managed to turn himself into a snake."

Slapping off Sirius' hand, which had paused in its tugging in shock, James turned on his heel and swept out of the classroom, leaving an extremely displeased Professor McGonagall to take ten points from Gryffindor while glaring at Sirius. Sirius himself was undoubtedly incensed by this declaration, and spent the remainder of the class scratching rude words into the top of his desk, blunting the end of James' favourite quill with evident pleasure.

Remus stared at the top of his own desk without concentrating, waiting for his heart to stop pounding so violently. He tried to nod in response to Peter's whispered speculation about James' bizarre behaviour, but ultimately resorted to a regular, jerking motion of his neck.

Oh, there was no doubt that he felt unbelievable grateful and touched by James' loyalty, but it was guilt, not relief, that solidified into a painful lump in Remus' chest. He had sworn that this wouldn't happen. He had promised himself that his 'secret' would never be allowed to interfere with his friendship. And yet, barely a fortnight after his closest friends had discovered that he was a lycanthrope, Remus had already managed to provoke an argument between Sirius and James.

He supposed that the timing of this lesson on animagi was a testament to his endless bad luck. In the twelve days since Remus had been permitted to leave the Hospital Wing, there had been an unspoken agreement between his three friends to avoid mentioning anything that concerned werewolves, or the moon, or the bruising that coloured Remus' arms.

Remus supposed that McGonagall's lesson had been the last straw for Sirius, whose ability to evade the obvious for extended periods had been stretched to the limit. The black-haired boy had undoubtedly been itching to confront Remus since the moment he had limped out of Madam Pomphrey's sight.

As the class was unceremoniously released, and the delicious scents of lunchtime wafted through the open door, Remus grabbed his books and leapt from his seat before his two remaining friends had even moved. Despite his queasy feeling of guilt, he knew that he would be unable to control himself enough to engage in any kind of civil conversation with someone who gave him the nickname 'Moony'.

He'd heard enough of animagi, enough of animals and transformations to last him until the exam period. As he tore through the bustling corridors, his Transfiguration notes were crushed in his clenched fists.

* * *

"I don't know, James," a low voice groaned quietly, halting Remus' fingers as he reached to turn the doorknob. He drew in a sharp breath as he heard the obvious misery in Sirius' tone from within their dormitory.

Knowing all the while that he should leave, Remus silently knelt beside the doorframe, pushed his armful of books to the side, and slumped against the hard wooden door, pressing his ear to the crack in the frame. His eyes widened slightly as he heard an unmistakeable edge in James' response. Evidently, Sirius' carelessness in Transfiguration had neither been forgiven nor forgotten.

"It's lycanthropy, not some thrilling parlour trick, Sirius," James said bitingly, "and if I were Remus, I'd drag you out under a full moon and give you a taste of what his 'secret' feels like."

It was difficult for Remus to stop, recollect, and remember all the many reasons why he shouldn't shower this particular opinion with applause. Certainly, it was tempting to lapse back into fury at Sirius' lack of caution, but how could Remus really expect any of his friends to understand? Sirius' reaction should have been much less surprising than James', considering that his friends had been necessarily cushioned by ignorance for the better part of three years.

Distracted from a whirling contradiction of thoughts and emotions by Sirius' reluctant voice, Remus forced his ear even closer to the conversation that was taking place on the other side of the door.

"Yeah, I know it's been a secret, James, and do you think that doesn't bother me? Doesn't it bother you? We have been living, eating, talking, and pranking with Remus for three years, and not once has anyone raised a hand and mentioned the full moon."

Heart sinking, a desperate pain cutting through all other emotions, Remus clenched his eyes shut and tried not to listen to the self-righteous voices that sprung into his head. He tried to ignore the victory of a pessimism that had accompanied him throughout his years at Hogwarts, a pessimism which had darkened the otherwise bright prospect of real friends.

He tried to focus on the hiss that issued from James' mouth in the absence of a proper response. Remus knew that James, stubborn as he was loyal, would never back down in his bizarre support for his werewolf friend – but stubbornness was no substitute for an argument that could respond honestly to Sirius' words.

"Nobody ever mentions your family," James spat out weakly, but Remus could sense a weary defeat in his lacklustre retort. It was so easy to imagine James sitting in there, legs crossed, stiffly upright in anger, sweeping a hand through his unruly black hair righteously in response to Sirius' replying glare.

"My family's no secret, Potter, but it's hard enough for me to deal with. What about Remus? What do you reckon he's been thinking for the past two weeks? We haven't said a bloody thing to him about the small, insignificant fact that we know he's a werewolf!"

Sirius' voice, which had grown progressively louder, was positively scathing as he bit out the last five words. However, when he continued, his volume had dropped significantly, and a new severity marked his words.

"What do you think he's has been thinking, James? I reckon he thinks we're afraid of him, or something stupid like that. You saw his face back there in the Hospital Wing."

There was a brief silence, in which Remus forcibly silenced the ragged edge to his breathing, and tried to remove his nails from his palms with sheer willpower. His feverish brain pictured the scene behind the door, in which Sirius' unexpected words had caused James to slump back against his pillows and nod reluctantly.

"So yeah, I was trying to get a rise out of him in Transfiguration, James, and I'm far from ashamed for it. If I have to call him Moony to make him talk about his lycanthropy, I'll bloody well do it."

Another short silence passed, in which Remus quietly scrolled back through the events in Transfiguration, applying this new interpretation to Sirius' careless words. He nodded to himself in wonder. Evidently, James was experiencing a similar reaction to this enlightenment.

"There are worse nicknames, Mr Snuffles," James said lightly, obviously trying to ease some of the tension that had gathered in the room. "In fact, Moony is quite urbane compared to some of the things that you normally call Remus."

If Remus' face hadn't become frozen in a permanent grimace of dread, he might have rolled his eyes in acknowledgement of the truth in James' words. Really, compared to Sirius' regular chants of 'loony, loopy, Lupin', Moony wasn't such a bad nickname. Undoubtedly, the two weeks of furtive glances exchanged between silent friends had contributed to the initial fury of Remus' response to hearing the name spring from Sirius' lips.

"Shut up, Potter," Sirius groaned, "and if you ever call me by that offensive name again, I will dump you for Peter."

"Even Peter would never fall for someone called Mr Snuf-"

Coincidentally, it was at that precise moment that Peter's foot found unexpected purchase in Remus' stomach. Evidently, the boy hadn't been looking where he was going, and had grasped blindly for the doorhandle while stepping forward. With an almighty clatter, and several bad words, Peter fell unceremoniously forward as the door swung open, landing painfully on his face – and in the middle of James' scathing retort.

For a moment, while Peter gathered himself, painfully sprawled upon the notes which he had been reading as he attempted to enter the dormitory, Sirius and James looked past the mess to where Remus still crouched, flushing with guilt.

"Er," Remus managed to squeak, moving a hand slowly to his ribs and quietly dislodging Peter's foot. "I dropped my…"

"Morals?" Sirius offered with every appearance of indignant outrage, though a wry smile pried at the edges of his lips. "Conscience?"

Remus smiled weakly as James clicked to attention, and sank easily into his role as Sirius' partner in jibes.

"So the werewolf finally descends to our level of moral bankruptcy, is that right?" James demanded, placing brave emphasis on the word 'werewolf', a sheepish grin lighting his face.

Remus tried very hard to scoff. "I doubt that I could sink _that_ low," he said loftily, and rolled stiffly onto his back, grabbing his face in his hands. "I am so very embarrassed."

"Word to the wise, werewolf," Sirius pronounced with striking alliteration, "next time, don't get caught."

"Stop saying that word," Remus groaned, eyes still squeezed shut against his sweaty palms. He continued desperately, sensing the meaningful gazes that were being exchanged between James and Sirius. "No, no, I'm not trying to avoid the subject, it's just that the door is open, and surely you've realised how important it is to keep – it – a secret from the rest of the student body."

Everyone was startled as a fourth voice entered the conversation, Peter finally managing to pull himself up onto his elbows.

"So you don't hate us for knowing, then?"

Remus winced. There was no straight answer to this question, and no honest response that his three friends would wish to hear. He cleared his throat while he rolled awkwardly through the doorframe and slammed the heavy wooden door shut with a kick of his foot.

"I suppose," he began, sitting up and looking deliberately at each of his friends, "that it's better for you to know my secret, despite the crippling fear of knowing that it's three times more likely that I'll be expelled from Hogwarts now."

"Expelled?" Peter repeated loudly, clearly shocked. He looked back and forth between the suddenly serious black-haired boys that sat silently on James' bed, a horrified expression on his face.

"I'm so sorry," Sirius suddenly muttered, guilt shading his eyes as he surveyed Remus' feet with obvious remorse. "I'm such an idiot. Transfiguration-"

"- will never be repeated," James finished, leaving Sirius to nod emphatically, still refusing to meet Remus' eyes.

"I should've expected it, really," Remus sighed, rolling his eyes. "It just figures that a lesson on animagi would crop up at this most awkward point in time."

"The animagi were cool, mate," James sighed, evidently relieved that all the tension of the previous fortnight had suddenly evaporated. "You wouldn't have to wait for a full moon, would you?"

"I never wait for a full moon," Remus said dryly, "I dread its arrival."

"Always face your fears, Moony," Sirius admonished brashly, reaching forward and picking up some of Peter's less crumpled pages of notes from the floor. He pointed something out to James in a would-be casual manner, but tossed aside the paper before Remus could read anything beyond the word 'animagus'.

"Shut up, Mr Snuffles," Remus sighed, shifting to lie flat on his back on the wooden floorboards, a certain buoyancy settling happily about his stomach. Maybe things could go back to the way they were after all…

* * *

**A/N: There we are, another chapter. Hope you enjoyed!**

**Please click the review button and drop me a line. Leave me a comment. Discuss the pros and cons of Mr Snuffles. Suggest a corresponding name for James or Peter. **

**Hit that button!**

**xx Froody**


	6. Bruised and Bemused

And so life continued at Hogwarts, a fact which struck Remus as rather odd each morning when he woke. Life trickled by in classes and homework, pranks and moons, just as it always had. Surrounded by three snoring boys, each of whom was aware of his secret, Remus felt himself to be in a constant state of bemusement. Vaguely happy, dazed, absolutely bemused.

Apart from a steady stream of muffled werewolf jokes and an extra three long faces in the castle on the day of a full moon, things seemed remarkably normal. Like the fact that Remus had been keeping his lycanthropy a secret for three years didn't even merit a change in the lives of the four Gryffindor boys.

No, that wasn't quite true. Remus often stopped himself before he could begin feeling too satisfied with his life, werewolf or not. Whatever his friends' assurances to the contrary, there had been a material shift in their attitudes ever since Halloween. Specifically, a dynamic had changed in the friendship between the four boys. This dynamic was, as always, of Sirius' creation.

Most days, Remus found Sirius to be warm and protective, hand around the shoulder, cheeks pulled in chortling laughter, focussing his enormous, bounding energy on Remus. Other days, all effervescence vanished, leaving Remus alone to his pooling qualms. Remus knew that James had noticed this new Jekyll and Hyde attitude in Sirius, but neither had brought it up. He quietly suspected that James was torn between his protective role and his absolute loyalty to Sirius.

And then, between Sirius' warm smiles and cold shoulder, were those times where Remus was left on his own. About once a week, his three friends buggered off to who knows where without a word, with nary a guilty glance or apologetic mumble. Hating himself for the thought, yet thinking it all the more heatedly, Remus told himself that the others just needed their werewolf-free time.

Really, there was no cause to be bitter, was there? After all, if James allowed Sirius to continuously swing through temperaments, sooner or later several windows would be broken, and McGonagall would finally snap. Detentions were not exactly lacking amongst the four boys. So these excursions without Remus were all for the best, weren't they?

On this particular pale and chilly Saturday morning, Remus stretched languidly, rubbed his face into his downy pillow until breathing became necessary, and smiled faintly in a familiar bemusement. His secret was out. He had clawed his way out of the closet. Nothing, not the meaningful glances between his friends that Remus was not privy to, not the lonely hours of reading in the library, not even Sirius' odd behaviour, could besmirch his vaguely happy bemusement at this hour.

His eyes cracked open reluctantly and were assaulted by glaring light. House elves, Remus thought blearily to himself, should be forbidden to open the dormitory curtains on weekends. It was cruelty, that's what it was. Not even his four-poster bed drapes could block the filtered light.

The light was tinged with orange, a reddish glow, a colour like the autumn leaves in September, like Lily's hair…

Remus panicked for a moment as his rambling thoughts paused on the image of Lily, and he scrambled around his bedside table for his watch. He'd promised Lily that he would give her his notes for Defence Against the Dark Arts before she left for Hogsmeade, and he had no idea how long he'd slept in.

Ever since Remus had begun to notice that his friends seemed to be excluding him from unknown activities, and had hence been alone a lot more often than usual, he found himself spending more and more time talking to Lily. For some reason, the green-eyed Gryffindor had apparently made it her purpose to distract Remus from his glum thoughts, and he had been rather surprised to find that he shared quite a number of interests with her.

She'd tried to convince him to come to Hogsmeade with her today. Remus had even been tempted, despite knowing that he had to decline. The four Gryffindor boys always went to Hogsmeade together. This dictum had been established on the first and previous visit.

Yawning, Remus rolled out of bed, dragged on his clothes, stumbled past the snoring lumps that, when conscious, were known as his friends, and reached the common room with his eyes still mostly closed.

"Remus?" an amused voice inquired, and the boy in question peered up groggily, shoving a sheaf of parchment before him. "Are you even awake yet?" Lily asked with a smile.

Remus returned her grin, and straightened from his slouch sheepishly.

"I thought that Dumbledore didn't encourage zombies to roam the dormitories," Lily chided, shaking her head in mock exasperation.

"Hey, at least this zombie brought the notes, as promised," Remus said indignantly, thrusting the parchment forward again.

Lily accepted the proffered sheets, shaking her head wearily as she did. "Ugh. I mean, thanks, but you know. I do not feel like spending the weekend studying Defence."

"Well, you're going to Hogsmeade today, aren't you?" Remus said cheerily. "Won't be much time for study there, eh?"

"Are you kidding me? I'm going with a group of Ravenclaws. I won't be able to get away from work all day." She sighed, and then raised an eyebrow pointedly at Remus. "You know,_ you_ could always come to Hogsmeade with me-"

Before Remus was forced to shape yet another awkward refusal, Lily was interrupted the entrance of Sirius Black, yawning, dishevelled, shirtless and barefoot. Remus rolled his eyes at the predictable nature of his friend's arrival. He felt almost refined in comparison. At least Remus had stuck his head under the tap before yawning his way downstairs.

"Moony, go to Hogsmeade with a girl? Please," Sirius said dryly, sweeping a lazy hand through his bed hair and somehow converting shaggy into silken. Remus followed his gaze to Lily and shrugged his shoulders resignedly, attempting to excuse himself from whatever insults spouted next from Sirius' mouth. The sudden glint in Sirius' eyes could never imply delicacy this early on a Saturday morning.

"Though if he did," he drawled, winking at Remus, "I suppose it would be fitting that he went with Little Red Riding Hood."

"Unappreciated," Remus muttered, embarrassed, staring at his feet as he felt Lily's bewildered gaze. His ears reddened slightly as Sirius barked a mocking laugh, but lifted his eyes as he heard Lily's retort.

"What a small brain you have, Black," she droned, arching an eyebrow at the grinning Sirius. "All the better to think up stupid nicknames?"

"You bet, Red," Sirius nodded unabashedly, then spun on his heel with the grace only he possessed this soon after waking, and stalked back up the stairs to the boys' dormitory, presumably to put on a shirt before some First Year girls became overly excited. Remus shook his head slowly, removing his eyes from the undulating muscles in Sirius' bare back.

"Why couldn't he just defy his family by being put in Ravenclaw or something?" Lily muttered darkly, shaking her head at an apologetic Remus.

"I guess he thought that he should break tradition properly, go all out."

"Yeah – I suppose he wouldn't have fit in, anyway. Intelligence is a requirement for a Ravenclaw," Lily mused.

Remus smiled despite his loyalty for Sirius. Lily clapped him on the back encouragingly.

"Let's go down and visit Hagrid before we go – yeah, I know, separately – to Hogsmeade. We haven't seen him in a while, and we may as well go now."

As Lily beckoned, Remus followed, and they climbed through the portrait hole together, Lily gesturing before her with her sheaf of notes as she continued to insult Sirius, Remus keeping his mouth firmly shut (though twisted in a slight smirk). Reaching Hagrid's cabin with damp feet, the frosty lawn beginning to melt in the wan morning sunlight, they knocked on the door, but were greeted with a surprising lack of response.

"He must be carrying out groundkeeper duties or something," Lily shrugged, pivoting on her heel and beginning to trudge back up to the castle. Remus followed, slightly behind, peering reluctantly over his shoulder at the cabin. Quietly, he'd been hoping for another opportunity to apologise for Fang's eternal banishment from the Hogwarts castle. The memory of Halloween had not faded quickly from Hagrid's mind.

When they finally climbed back through the portrait hole and into the common room, Remus waved to Lily and began mounting the stairs two at a time, pulling himself along with the banister, eager to see whether Sirius had successfully woken the others, or perhaps collapsed back into bed. Either way, they would all soon be on an outing to Hogsmeade, each buoyed by a prankster's sense of joy at the prospect of visiting Zonko's.

It felt like forever since the four of them had really done something together.

"Hello?" he called brightly into the dormitory, but his greeting was unanswered, and when Remus pulled the door open to peer inside, he was surprised to find four empty beds. He stuck his head around the doorframe, noting the absence of his friends' shoes flung 'artistically' across the floor. They must have gone to breakfast already.

Remus returned to the common room and caught the eye of Frank Longbottom, a gangly fourth-year, who had just climbed in through the portrait hole.

"Oi, Frank, have you seen James or Sirius?"

Frank nodded, gesturing behind him as he answered. "Yeah, I saw them leaving for Hogsmeade, mate. I was wondering where _you_ were."

Remus stared blankly as Frank shrugged and turned away. They'd left already? Without him? But he'd talked to Sirius just this morning – and hadn't they promised each other that Hogsmeade was a group mission to procure sweets and prank-making materials?

He started as someone tugged at his arm. He looked down to see Lily's pale, freckled hand clamped around his forearm.

"Hey, Remus," she said quietly, giving him a small smile. "Come to Hogsmeade with me, okay?"

"Okay," he muttered, trying not to look disappointed, or miserable, or betrayed, keeping his eyes trained on her small white fingers.

* * *

"Feel like some magical lollies, Remus?" Lily asked lightly, pulling him eagerly towards the bright window front of Honeydukes. "Maybe there's something there that will tempt Hagrid to forgive you – stoat sandwiches, perhaps, or honeyed hippogriff. Werewolf waffles?"

Remus glanced sharply at Lily, who was grinning at her own clever alliteration, and then twisted his face to reflect her expression of disgust as she obviously contemplated Hagrid's bizarre cooking. "Why stoat?" she muttered softly, shaking her head, but then they were immersed in the crowd of sweet-grabbing students, and Remus could hear Lily no more.

It had been a long day. Lily had dragged Remus to virtually every corner of the small village of Hogsmeade in an attempt to distract him from his melancholy, skipping quickly away from a certain group of Ravenclaws, dashing across a frosty field to peek over at the Shrieking Shack, examining owls at the Post Office.

Remus had to admit that there had been moments of successful distraction. Butterbeer was still as deliciously satisfying as the first time he had tried it, and there was a certain charm about the young Madam Rosmerta. However, as the light had eventually dulled through the afternoon, clouds solidifying across the sky, Remus had felt increasingly miserable.

Some friends he had. He hadn't even caught a glimpse of them all day, not even in Zonkos. Remus imagined that they must have spent the entire afternoon in Madam Puddifoots Teashop – one of the few places that Lily had neglected to drag him into.

As students bustled around him, knocking his shoulders into sweet stands as they grabbed last-minute provisions before their imminent return to Hogwarts, Remus stared blankly at a jar of Cockroach Cluster, feeling about as lifeless as the curled-up sweets. Lily had merged into the crowd as soon as they'd entered the door. Suddenly, a familiar voice drifted through the general murmur, and Remus' head shot up.

"Are you going to buy those Ice Mice or just stare at them, Pete?" James asked in an exasperated tone, clearly rolling his eyes and ignoring Sirius' snickers beside him.

"I was just-" Peter began, sounding vaguely hurt. Remus peered over the flock of students, trying to see over to the place where he thought he remembered seeing Ice Mice the last time he visited Honeydukes. He thought he might have caught a glimpse of a familiar shock of black hair, and narrowed his eyes.

"Just what?" Sirius drawled, "Enjoying the squeaking?"

"Mice are not the same as ra-" Peter began heatedly, but was interrupted by an insistent shushing from James. Remus frowned. More secrets? Ice Mice? What, was this avoidance thing some kind of confectionary scandal?

He knew he was being unreasonably paranoid, and yet somehow he could not bring himself to care. Fists clenching in anger, Remus jostled his way through the throng of students, forging a path more or less directly towards his friends' voices. The patch of black hair had disappeared somewhere, but he was determined to find the three boys. Screw secrecy. He wanted a confrontation.

"Oi, where have you guys go-" Remus heard Sirius' annoyed voice call out in irritation, but as he finally thrust his way into the gap in front of his black-haired friend, Sirius fell silent. A crooked grin eventually found its way to Sirius' face, and he smiled nervously at Remus. This was not a normal expression for the smug, arrogant Sirius, a fact that Remus did not even bother to take note of.

"Um, hi," Sirius began, clearing his throat and gesturing awkwardly with his arms full of a wide selection of Honeydukes sweets. "Come here often?"

Remus ignored this throw-away line and cut to the chase. He was angry. He advanced.

Sirius' cheerful façade seemed to fall away as he suddenly seemed to feel the heat of Remus' sense of betrayal. His face dropped into an apologetic expression, and he opened his mouth, undoubtedly to make some conciliatory excuse, but all that escaped him for a moment was a startled "Oof!" as Remus shoved him backwards with unusual force.

"So you thought you'd all go and hang out at Hogsmeade without me, right?" Remus yelled, silencing the chatter of the students on either side. "You thought you'd have some fun without the w- without the freak, like you do at school?"

He pushed Sirius again, both hands in the chest, prompting a spray of sweets to spill from his friend's arms and scatter across the floor. "Have a good time?" Remus raged, ignoring the startled, almost incredulous look on Sirius' face. "Not that you'd tell me, would you?"

As Sirius stumbled backwards, caught off guard by yet another shove, his face changed, shifting into a momentary mask of anger. "Yeah, you've never had any secrets, have you, Moony?" He reached out, grabbing Remus' hands as they were about to land squarely on his chest again, causing Remus to overbalance and crash heavily forward.

Remus caught a glimpse of Sirius' wide, wincing eyes as they tumbled together past a line of staring students, over several inconveniently-placed feet, and, unexpectedly, through a small door behind the counter at the back of the shop.

"Aaaargh!" they both cried as momentum carried them across a small landing to the top of a steep, dark staircase. Remus barely had time to desperately grasp a handful of Sirius' robes before the two boys crashed down the stairs, landing, bruised and battered and groaning, beside sealed crates of Honeydukes goods.

Remus gasped silently as he struggled to breath, having winded himself. He lay sprawled over what appeared to be Sirius' body, his elbows appreciating the softness of the heaving form below him. Slowly, he summoned the willpower to open his eyes, his anger having disappeared somewhere on the landing above them, and gazed through the shadowy darkness, finding Sirius' face unexpectedly near.

As Remus stared down at Sirius, only inches away, he noticed that his friend still wore the same startled expression as he had in the shop. For some reason, this fact seemed incredibly hilarious, and he began to choke out a shallow laugh. Sirius' expression abruptly changed.

"What'd you push me down here for, anyway?" he asked quietly, peering up at Remus' face. "We didn't mean to hurt your feelings or anything, Moony, we just couldn't find you before we left." He was silent for a moment, as if waiting. Then – "Ouch."

Remus averted his eyes, laughter silenced, a shade crossing over his face. "That's bollocks, Sirius, and you know it."

Now it was Sirius' turn to glance away, abashed. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, wincing, and stared into the darkness behind Remus as he spoke. "You know we're not avoiding you, or anything, Remus. And there's no way we'd ever want to hurt you. I mean, I didn't even realise that you felt… hurt or anything."

Remus was silent. It had been months since he had started feeling a bit left out, months since his friends had begun disappearing off together without him. He realised now that, while they had never spoken of it to him, he had never mentioned it either. He realised that his explosion of anger in the shop above had perhaps been as unexpected as Sirius made it seem.

He knew that Sirius, James and Peter still had a lot to account for. He lay motionless for a minute as his mind calmed, and examined all of this in a different perspective.

"You still shouldn't left without me, you know," he said finally, trying not to sound too pathetic.

"Get off me, you sod," Sirius muttered, groaning as he tried to push Remus off of his torso, sitting up gingerly when Remus obliged. "Ouch. I haven't fallen down a flight of stairs in ages."

"Rubbish," Remus sighed, stifling his laughter, and testing his muscles, wincing lightly. His aches and pains were nothing. He had had so much worse.

"Where are we?" Sirius asked lightly, no doubt hoping to avoid reigniting the rage which had led the two boys down to wherever they were now.

"Honeydukes cellar, presumably," Remus said quietly, staring around at the darkness, gradually beginning to see the outlines of cartons and the staircase, and of a dusty old trapdoor at the end of his feet.

"Shall we?" Sirius said with a groan, climbing painfully to his feet, and offering his hand to Remus, who still sat on the floor.

"Yeah," Remus responded, grabbing the hand, and using the firm grip to lever himself to his feet. They made their way carefully to the staircase and climbed it slowly, wary of tumbling back down in the darkness. Sirius reached the door at the top first. It had swung itself shut presumably after their entrance, and he reached forward with a tight smile at Remus. His smile faded as the handle refused to turn. He pulled out his wand from his robes and tapped fiercely at the door. "Alohomora! Alohomora!"

The door remained shut.

"Locked," Sirius said in disbelief, and tugged more insistently on the doorknob. Before Sirius could begin to hammer at the door and holler like was inevitable, Remus grabbed his shoulders.

"Sirius, we're not supposed to be down here," he said, attempting to sound calm. Inwardly, he cursed and raged at his constant bad luck. Undoubtedly, Honeydukes had finally dispersed its crowd of students and closed for the day.

"Where's here, Moony? I'm not going to spend my life locked in this cellar to keep you from getting in trouble!"

"Hysterics don't become you, Sirius," Remus sighed, and withdrew his hands from Sirius' shoulders. "Do you want to be banned from visiting Honeydukes for the rest of your existence?" Remus did not. In times like these, his chocolate fix was more important than he could possibly reveal.

"Of course not!" Sirius snapped, flexing his fingers impatiently at his sides. "But I don't want to live here forever!"

"Look," Remus said, raising his voice slightly, allowing a touch of his previous anger to spread into his tone as he talked to Sirius. "I saw a trapdoor down there, behind some crates. Maybe it'll lead to the shop next door or something, somewhere with an open door we can sneak out of."

"Alright," Sirius said reluctantly, allowing himself to be redirected back down the dull flight of stairs. "It probably leads to a giant vat of Cockroach Cluster, you know. Live cockroaches. When we become cockroach food, you know I'll blame you for it."

"As long as Snape chokes on a cockroach engorged on our flesh, you know it'll be worth it," Remus retorted lightly, getting down onto his bruised knees and hauling at the dull metal ring inset into the trapdoor.

"Let me," Sirius said dryly, rolling up his sleeves with a flourish and flexing his muscles. Remus rolled his eyes, fumbled in his pocket, shoved Sirius back out of the way and tried the unlocking spell on the reluctant, dust-coated trapdoor.

"Voila," he said smugly, peering down into the blackness beneath the trapdoor. He thought he could make out some stairs. "I don't think it leads to a giant vat of cockroaches, either."

"But why's it going down so far?" Sirius whined, glaring down at the black square in the floor of the cellar. "Shouldn't it just wind across to the shop next door?"

Before Remus could think of a logical answer to Sirius' question, the two boys froze as a key scraped into a heavy lock above them. "Quickly!" Remus hissed, diving headlong into the trapdoor entrance.

For the second time in twenty minutes, the two boys tumbled down a flight of hard, stone stairs, Sirius flinging out an arm to grab shut the trapdoor behind him, and, upon reaching the bottom, made their way cautiously along the lengthy passage beyond.

It was with some bemusement that they finally reached the end of the tunnel, searched around in the darkness for a ladder or another trapdoor or some form of exit, accidentally happened upon a small lever inset in stone, and stumbled, blinking, into a candle-lit hall of their very familiar school.

"Awesome," Sirius breathed, gazing back into the dark tunnel from which they had just arrived. "Do you know what this means?"

Remus closed his eyes wearily as his stomach growled fiercely with hunger. "Yes. It means that your cockroach hypothesis was terribly flawed."

Sirius ignored this. "It means that we have found a secret passage that leads out of Hogwarts, my friend. It means that we have uncovered a way to travel into a sweet shop in the dead of night and line our stomachs with sugar. In short, it means that we have discovered freedom."

Remus cracked open an eyelid in disbelief, squinting quizzically at Sirius.

"Come, we must inform the others!" the black-haired, bruised, and enlightened boy cried, limping excitedly into the hallway. Fatigued, famished, and emotionally exhausted, Remus slowly summoned the strength to follow his friend, comforted by the knowledge that some secrets, no matter how trivial, would always be shared between all four Gryffindors.

* * *

**A/N: Ouch. This chapter was really hard to write, heaven knows why. Hope you enjoyed it, and that you couldn't tell there was a certain strain involved at times! Don't worry, I will work on resolving Remus' little outburst here in the next few chapters. **

**Now, You must ask yourselves that essential question: did she write this chapter purely with the ambition of including not only a topless Sirius, but a Remus collapsed on top of said Sirius?**

**Sigh. Sometimes I want to skip through the formative years of Hogwarts and get straight to the "good stuff".**

**Stick with me, brilliant readers, and please send a review to let me know how you're finding the story. Thanks for reading it!**

**xx Froody**


	7. J'Irai Décrocher La Lune

**A/N: The title of this chapter is French, gorgeous, and can be literally translated as, "I would take down the moon". As an idiomatic expression, it means, "I would do the impossible (for you)", and is a lyric from Edith Piaf's song, "Hymne a L'Amour." Do yourself a favour and listen to the magic that is that song - Dumbledore would be proud. **

**Enjoy the chapter!**

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* * *

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FOURTH YEAR

* * *

The crowd gasped as one.

The bludger had unexpectedly found purchase in Dumbledore's favourite hat, and Sirius Black looked abashed from his aerial position, bat swinging loosely from his hand. Professor McGonagall looked ready to cry – though whether from despair or laughter, nobody knew.

"New strategy?" Peter pondered from beside Remus on the stands. "You have to admit, it's a worthy attempt at distraction."

Indeed, Remus had to admit that Peter was right. Despite the unbelievable faux pas Sirius had just committed, it was entirely possible that a particular enthusiastic and diabolic duo on the Gryffindor quidditch team had planned this attack. Remus sincerely hoped that the odds, on this occasion, were wrong.

The two boys watched Dumbledore with identical expressions of morbid fascination as the headmaster climbed slowly to his feet. His expression was impossible to read as his long body unfolded itself at the front of the Gryffindor stand. Finally, incredibly, and to Professor McGonagall's assured rage, Dumbledore removed his pointed hat, used his fist to push the stiff material back into its original shape, placed it on his head, and cheerily waved the game on, sitting immediately back down in his seat.

Mouth hanging open in disbelief, Remus watched the auburn-haired wizard clap for a few moments. As Peter tugged impatiently on his sleeve, he glanced back at the quidditch pitch and gaped as the commentary finally caught up with him.

"-GOT IT! Another brilliant win by Gryffindor! What a strategic game! Looks like Potter and Black have once more pulled one out of their hat, so to speak. Just look at the expression on McGonagall's face – ouch, sorry Professor-"

Remus turned to Peter in confusion. "What happened? I was watching Dumbledore."

"So were the Ravenclaws," Peter grinned, "and while the team was distracted, Bailey caught the snitch!"

"I'm surprised James didn't take the opportunity to score a few goals," Remus muttered, though an incredulous smile had broken onto his face.

"That wouldn't have been good sportsmanship, Moony," James' most haughty and indignant voice interrupted, prompting the two boys in the stands to glance up in surprise. Remus rolled his eyes at the bespectacled figure, who was hovering a few feet away from the stand, holding his broomstick steady with an air of smug triumph.

"And what exactly does Dumbledore think of this?" Remus asked, lacing his tone with heavy reproach.

"Oh, keep your hat on," Sirius declared with a smirk, arriving smartly beside James, his quidditch robes slapping his friend in the face as he stopped. "Dumbledore's a true supporter, Moony."

Remus just shook his head, and abandoned his half-hearted attempt to inject morality into the conversation. He was, of course, as excited about the first Gryffindor win of the season as the small blond boy bouncing beside him, but unlike Peter, restricted himself to cheering inwardly. There was only so much praise that he could bear to give to his trouble-making, self-satisfied friends.

"You are trouble-making, self-satisfied friends," he muttered darkly, prompting a round of laughter from the two boys on broomsticks, and a sharp prodding from Peter.

"Oi, you're one of us, you know," Sirius cried, zooming forward into the stand and hopping off his broom indignantly. "There are four magical mischief makers in this school, and frankly, mate, you're the dodgiest of the lot."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Bollocks."

"That's not what Dumbledore said when I explained that the bludger assault was your idea," Sirius responded gleefully, slapping James a swift high-five. "He seemed quite impressed at your involvement in the school sport, really."

Remus gasped, spun, and stared down into the crowd to the front of the stand, where Dumbledore was now joined by an irate Professor McGonagall. His stomach dropped as the headmaster suddenly turned and met his eye, giving a broad wink and tipping his slightly dented hat.

"You. Did. Not," Remus hissed, turning bright red and reeling back to where the others lay about crying with laughter.

"Sorry Moony," James whispered weakly, looking near paralysed with mirth as he held his stomach with hands grasped to his broomstick handle, lying upside down in the air. "We just thought it would cap off the victory."

"I mean, our pranks, they're old hat to the professors," Sirius uttered between gasps of laughter. "We wanted to bowl them over with a top act!"

"Do not pun with me, friends," Remus growled, grabbing Sirius' broomstick from its abandoned position on the floor and waving it threateningly in the faces of his three companions. "Someone is going to die for this."

"Let me put on my thinking cap," Peter added suddenly, unnecessarily, and gazed about for a minute as each of his three friends, Remus included, immediately collapsed in response to this statement.

"I think you needed to do that a while ago, Pete," Sirius managed finally, wiping a tear from his eye.

"Be nice," James said, frowning good-humouredly at Sirius, finally slipping off his broomstick and joining the others on the stand. "I believe that a party is waiting for the stars of the moment in the Gryffindor Tower."

"They're waiting for Dumbledore's hat and the bludger?" Remus asked wryly, ducking a swipe from Sirius, and jabbing his friend in response with the broomstick he still held firmly in his hand.

"Let not disgruntled sarcasm disrupt the joyous nature of this moment," Sirius declared pompously, ripping the broomstick from Remus' hand and tapping it on the shoulders of each of his friends. "I hereby knight us all as Hogwart's most esteemed and venerable Magical Mischief-Makers, the marauding four, the mythical and mystical lion-hearts, and seriously awesome quidditch players."

"The Marauders!" James cheered, raising his broomstick in the fashion of a champagne glass during a toast, and narrowly missing Professor McGonagall's face as she came to a stop behind the four boys. "Whoops, sorry, Professor."

McGonagall's lips tightened visibly as she glared at Sirius and James in turn, obviously thinking of the bludger incident. However, in the wake of a Gryffindor victory, it appeared that she had become strangely lenient, sentencing the two boys to only three hours of detention with Filch rather than the normal five, and instructing them all to return promptly to the tower for the celebrations.

* * *

Five full moons had illuminated the night sky since Remus had returned to school from the dull glimmer of the lakeside and entered his fourth year. He had had little expectation that this year would turn out to be much different from the last three. Granted, his three best friends were now aware of his "furry little problem", by which it was now regularly referred (to Remus' extreme discomfort). Granted, fewer pebbles had been kicked into the lake over summer as more letters had flown in by owl post than ever before.

Admittedly, there were significant details that had been altered in the last year, and the summer break had seemed to allow Remus' friends to properly come to terms with his secret. Tellingly, Peter no longer avoided Remus on the mornings of a full moon. The usual smiles, the usual humour, the teasing, the random acts of violence, the distinct lack of awkwardness between the four boys had reappeared in the Fourth Year dormitory in Gryffindor Tower.

Fourth Year had a conspicuously sunny edge that the three previous years had lacked, and it seemed to Remus like some of the cold pallor of the moon faded in response.

Certainly, Remus' lycanthropy was pulled into conversation regularly between the four boys. James and Sirius in particular had demanded minute details about the transformation process. More than one Hogsmeade trip had involved an uncomfortable visit to the Shrieking Shack, where three boys would stare avidly between the battered hut and their friend's deliberately averted gaze.

One piece of information that Remus almost regretted sharing with his friends was the location of the entrance to the tunnel leading to the Shrieking Shack. He knew, of course, that his friends possessed enough intelligence never to venture into the tunnel themselves, but it still bothered him that they had shown interest in such specifics.

Although the truth about the Whomping Willow's purpose had been revealed, Remus took comfort in knowing that even if his friends did lose their minds and attempt to enter the tunnel, they would be soundly impeded by the tree's battering branches. Nobody had asked how this little difficulty was overcome, and so Remus didn't even have to lie (badly) to cover his motives. He had a sneaking suspicion that if he told the others about the knot in the trunk of the tree, several broomsticks would be broken purely out of curiosity, and Remus did not want to face an irate Professor McGonagall demanding to know what had happened to school equipment.

As it so happened, the quidditch match which had taken place five months into the school year – that very afternoon – was engraved into James' calendar beside a significant date. Aside from the subtle marks indicating the night of the full moon each month, and the flashing ink circles surrounding the dates of quidditch matches, this calendar (the only one in the Fourth Year boys' dormitory) contained only six other dates: Christmas, Easter, and each of the boys' birthdays.

Tomorrow would be Remus' fourteenth birthday – the 9th of March. Although Remus himself did not hold any great stock by this celebration, appreciating the presents but not the attention, it was a well-known fact amongst the Gryffindors that violent festivities tended to occur on this occasion.

Each year, Remus made a futile attempt to terminate his friends' plans before they could come into fruition. Each year, he failed miserably. Although he groaned without fail at the balloons, the fireworks, the regular explosions of colour and food, and the often dangerous presents presented to him, Remus secretly appreciated his friends' efforts. Unfortunately, he could tell that the other three boys were well aware of this particular secret.

It had become an annual mission for Sirius, James, and Peter to turn Remus' face a deeper shade of red than ever before – and to this end they worked unfailingly. Hence, during the two weeks prior to his birthday, for the first time in a whole year, Remus found himself vaguely excited, rather than downcast, every time his friends went off on their own without him.

The next morning, as the sun peered over the edge of the horizon and tinged the dark sky with an orange glow, Remus was awakened (as was custom) by three bouncing boys ripping open the curtains on his four-poster bed.

"What?" he muttered sleepily into his pillow, too close to unconsciousness for the cause of this commotion to register.

"On the count of three," he heard someone whisper rather ominously from the end of his bed. Remus whimpered quietly, pulling his heavy blankets up around his ears, but it was too late.

"Surprise!" three voices yelled at the huddled form. Remus snatched at thin air as his covers flew away, protesting loudly as he was dragged from his bed and over to James'. He hugged his arms to his body as he was seated on the end of the cold bed, and glared balefully at his beaming friends.

"Hey, wake up," James urged, "we've got an enormous present for the birthday boy, and we've got to present it before class."

Remus rubbed at his eyes blearily and reluctantly abandoned all hopes of returning to bed. "I hate Mondays," he muttered. He barely noticed that his friends were perhaps a little quieter today than they normally were on his birthday. It was rather easy to ignore Sirius' nervous foot-tapping habit at seven o'clock in the morning.

"It's got something to do with your furry-" Peter began, but was promptly shushed by James.

"This must be handled delicately," James announced, waving his hands condescendingly at his short friend, but Remus caught him giving Peter a wink.

"What have you done?" Remus asked loudly, suddenly filled with dread. "If this is another prank in my honour, and all the teachers have dog tails…"

"Excellent idea, Moony," Sirius said, looking surprised and slightly gleeful at the thought, "but unfortunately, your present this year only involved the four of us."

As Remus wracked his brains for the logical answer to all these mystifying hints, he watched Sirius and James exchange a meaningful gaze.

"Tell him already," Sirius muttered impatiently. James nodded in surrender, and turned back to Remus, whose dread had become more akin to morbid curiosity.

"You remember that class we had in Transfiguration we had last year?" James asked, prompting a vague look on Remus' face, which perhaps informed the bespectacled boy that further clarification was required. "You know, the one on Animagi." He continued speaking without waiting for Remus' reaction. "Just suppose that the three of us have become sincerely interested with the process that McGonagall is currently undertaking…"

"No," Remus whispered, refusing to allow this proposition to register in his mind. Think uncrazy thoughts, think uncrazy thoughts…

"Well, yeah," Sirius intervened, throwing an uneasy glance towards James. "I mean, don't be daft, we haven't completely worked it out yet, but we've come quite a way – even Peter!"

Peter nodded emphatically. "I think I shrunk three feet last Wednesday, Moony, can you imagine that? Three whole feet!"

Remus, whose brain had suddenly been thrown into a whirring vortex of utter disbelief, dimly wondered why the shrinkage of a short boy would be met with such celebration. He looked wildly from an earnest Peter to a worried James to a gesticulating Sirius, who seemed to be saying something about how they had been extremely careful, and how they had decided that it was necessary to tell Remus – but only after some kind of result had been achieved.

"I mean, mate, we didn't want to raise some kind of unrealistic expectation," Sirius explained nervously. "But you know what it'll mean when the three of us are able to transform into animals at will? We'll be able to help you out during full moons."

As Remus choked slightly, James interrupted. "We've been doing research, Moony, extremely dedicated, in-depth research of which McGonagall would be proud, and several books have suggested that werewolves can experience less pain during transformations if distracted by other animals."

"And werewolves are only dangerous to humans, you know!" Sirius added with an air of desperation.

"But," Remus stuttered, "but Peter- Peter shrunk three feet…"

"Oh, don't worry about that," James said breezily, waving his hand dismissively in a completely unsettling manner, "Sirius and I seem to grow, if anything. I'm sure that our eventual animagi will be able to handle a werewolf."

Remus was extremely glad that he had been seated on the end of a bed. The idea of any of his friends being able to handle a werewolf was vaguely laughable. He couldn't even manage to turn his mind to the immense difficulty and danger inherent in the process of becoming animagi, or the illegality of his friends' attempt, or what Dumbledore would say if he had any idea of what was being planned…

"Well," he whispered dazedly, the world blurring slightly at the edges in a wild melange of shock and happiness, "I believe you've outdone yourselves this year."

James, Peter, and Sirius exchanged thrilled glances. Remus didn't even pause in his own shock to notice that the distinct air of apprehension that had been generated by his friends had now dissipated into relief.

"You know we'd do anything to help you, Moony," Sirius said earnestly, stepping closer to where Remus sat perched on the end of James' bed. "If we could blow up the moon with a handy set of Dr Filibuster's Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks, believe me, it would be gone."

Remus glanced away from Sirius' dark, impassioned gaze as his eyes brimmed with sudden tears at this rather ridiculous but incredibly heartfelt statement. He could sense the others shifting awkwardly at this display of emotion, and fought hard to control himself.

"Happy birthday, mate," James said finally, gesturing grandly towards Sirius, who pulled (with a characteristic flourish) a large pink cake from behind his back, flinching only slightly as Peter waved his wand to light the candles.

"Pink?" Remus asked distractedly.

"Yeah, those house-elves are in love with me, you know," Sirius sighed, raising his eyebrows irreverently as he roused the others into chorus.

_"Happy birthday to you,_

_Snape's in need of shampoo;_

_We'll prank him tomorrow_

_As a present for you!"_

Remus had to laugh at this latest attempt at poetry. He wiped at his eyes inconspicuously, overwhelmed, but trying to hide his emotion.

"Nice rhyme-scene," he remarked, shaking his head in mock admiration, "though I notice that you seem to have rhymed 'you' with 'you'."

James pretended to take great offence at this while Peter stared into the air, apparently reciting the lyrics of the song in his head in order to verify Remus' assertion. Sirius, however, shrugged and walked over to his rather blotchy friend, slinging an arm over his lean shoulders.

"You are of course the most important element in that song, Moony," he said lightly, "and besides, we couldn't think of anything that rhymed with 'Moony'. Except, of course, 'loony', and 'puny', and we didn't think that you'd appreciate those."

Remus chuckled quietly, still taken aback by the magnitude of what his friends had been doing behind his back for this past long year. He had been so wrong, this entire time. How could he have accused such loyal, wonderful, caring friends of needing werewolf-free time? Shame rose in his throat, choking him slightly, but it was a great happiness that settled across his chest, relaxing his muscles, bringing a slight, incredulous smile to his face, even as a few small tears trickled from his eyes.

He leaned his head against Sirius' shoulder and grinned weakly as James continued ranting about lyricism and tonal devices. This was, indeed, the best birthday ever.

**

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****A/N: You gotta love quidditch. I absolutely loved writing a broomstick scene, to tell you the truth.**

**Hope the time gap between chapters didn't put you off, but as I do not plan to write inch-by-inch details of the Marauders' Hogwarts years, I have planned my story with the hope of capturing particular crucial moments that affect the four boys. Frankly, I think the story will remain more interesting this way. Hope you agree! **

**STUDY QUESTIONS**

**1. Write down as many hat puns as you can think of. The author would be much amused to see if her weak efforts can be upstaged (God forbid I ever feel inclined to write a Sorting Hat song!)**

**2. What would your animagus be and why? **

**Thanks for reading, guys, now hit that review button and drop me some love!! Or merely constructive criticism. Just go for it. :)**

**xx Froody**


	8. Scars Exposed

**FIFTH YEAR**

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Lily snorted and small chunks of stoat sandwich flew through the air towards a startled Remus and a chuckling Hagrid.

Remus had spent a fair portion of the last week being startled. The mere fact that Lily had accepted one of Hagrid's stoat specialities was one of the more unexpected occurrences of the day, but hardly rated a mention when compared to arrival of a prefect badge two days before the beginning of term.

At least Lily had made some effort to explain the sandwich – apparently any protein was welcome after a summer of her bony sister's health food fix. The badge was less easily explained away. As his white-faced mother had released the owl out the kitchen window, lines of incredulity creasing her forehead as a smile gradually formed on her face, Remus had sat at the small table and stared at the small metal pin, fingering it numbly.

A werewolf prefect? It sounded like some bizarre horror story that undoubtedly ended in mass carnage and a silver bullet piercing a school uniform. However, his lycanthropy was not the only factor that made the arrival of this badge nonsensical. Was Dumbledore somehow unaware that Remus was friends with the most troublesome duo in Hogwarts' history?

"You mean Sirius actually offered to remove the burden from you and become prefect himself?" Lily finally managed, looking completely unabashed at her small explosion of sandwich. Remus, far too used to his friends' repulsive eating habits to care about this lapse in ladylike manners, nodded his head wryly.

"I think I should really give him credit for his willingness to sacrifice his own happiness for mine," Remus said seriously, digging his fingers deeply into a blissful Fang's coat. "He really seemed to mean it."

"But it's an honour!" Hagrid broke in, unable to comprehend Remus' reaction to Sirius' offer.

"Is it really?" Remus moaned desolately, thinking back to his friends' stunned, disbelieving silence. "I'm a Marauder, Hagrid, I'm a magical mischief maker, and now I'm meant to deny my nature and become Dumbledore's stooge?"

"Was that James' reaction to your news?" Lily asked critically, raising an eyebrow at the despairing Remus.

"In those exact words? Yes."

"Well, you knew they weren't going to understand," Lily said airily, rubbing Remus lightly on the back and exchanging an amused smile with Hagrid, who was picking up his stoat sandwich for another enormous bite. "And anyway, I, for one, am extremely honoured to be a Gryffindor prefect. It's the first step to becoming Head Girl, you know."

Remus brightened a little at this, remembering that his disastrous appointment to such a disappointing position of responsibility was tempered by the fact that he was joined in his task by Lily.

"Yeah, at least I'm not alone," he conceded, offering a small, crooked smile to Hagrid and Lily, giving Fang an extra scratch behind the ears. "And hey, it might even give me something to do while Sirius and James are at Quidditch practice."

"You mean besides studying," Lily drawled, rolling her eyes in mock despair. "Oh, OWLS, plague of my life, curse of my studies, occupier of all spare time – remember all that, Remus?"

"Oh, please don't go there," Remus begged, and Hagrid nodded understandingly. Although Lily and Remus had never been able to find out why exactly Hagrid was expelled in his third year at Hogwarts, they understood that studying had never been his forte anyway. From Hagrid's glowing accounts of his school days, they had determined that the majority of their bearded friend's time was spent exploring the Forbidden Forest in pursuit of exciting magical creatures.

"Tha' reminds me," Hagrid put in, tapping an enormous finger on the table's wooden surface pensively. "Have Sirius and James been making more time for yeh recently? I was this close to talkin' to them about it, yeh know."

Remus flushed slightly as Lily slid him a questioning glance. Back before his birthday last year, when he had discovered the truth behind his friends' frequent mysterious disappearances, Remus had felt abandoned. Apart from becoming closer to Lily, Remus had eventually (and quite uncomfortably) responded to Hagrid's prompts, and they had talked stiltedly about the potential connection between his lycanthropy and his friends' odd behaviour.

"Well, er, it's only the third day of term," Remus hedged, twisting his wrist awkwardly in his hand. "But I'm sure they'll be normal now – I mean, we're all in fifth year, and presumably a bit more mature."

"Fifteen-year-old boys, mature?" Lily snorted, and Remus shot her a wounded look. "Not you, silly," she muttered, shaking her head. "You, unlike the rest, seem to have a brain."

"She's got a point there, Remus," Hagrid said seriously, pushing back on a flimsy-looking kitchen chair, which teetered threateningly on its shaky hind legs. "But yeh gotta know they don't mean any of it. From what this young lady 'ere tells me, James isn't the sort who'd abandon a friend because of what they are."

Remus paled slightly and attempted to convey a clear warning to Hagrid with only his eyes, but the rough, well-meaning voice continued:

"Friendship doesn't stop at six feet, and it certainly doesn't stop at a full moon."

There came a slight movement from Remus' left as Lily dropped her sandwich (into a perfectly situated Fang's mouth). He clawed a hand over his eyes and refused to look at the last close friend that he'd had who thought he was just a normal human.

Remus felt the table shift slightly as Hagrid whipped his head to stare at Lily and then Remus, and back to Lily in confusion.

"Yeh didn't know?" Hagrid asked a little too loudly, a note of panic evident in his voice.

"I knew."

Remus jerked his head out of his hand as Lily's quiet voice filtered through, and stared wildly into calm green eyes.

"I've known since last year, Remus, when you missed one too many Astronomy classes for it to be a coincidence."

Remus laughed hollowly. "I hate that class."

"That little fact also helped to key me in," Lily said quietly, reaching over and grasping Remus' arm soothingly. "I don't care, Remus. Exactly like Hagrid said. And if your friends deserve to hang around you – which I often doubt – then they will mature up fast."

Lily smiled reassuringly at a distraught Hagrid, who flushed and calmed instantly at her praise.

"We'd better leave, Hagrid – afternoon classes are about to begin."

As soon as the two students were outside Hagrid's cabin, they began walking towards the castle. Remus kept his eyes on the grass as he shoved his hands in his deep robe pockets. An uncomfortable silence fell between the pair. Finally, Lily broke through the awkwardness:

"Really, Remus, it was just silly of you to think that I would avoid you because of your lycanthropy. I mean, if anyone is going to understand how it feels to be incapacitated with pain once a month, it's going to be a girl."

Lily achieved her intended effect; Remus' white face began to billow with bright red embarrassment as he deciphered her rationale. Glancing across to her mortified friend, Lily broke into giggles, which served only to deepen Remus' flush. She shook her head in exasperation.

"Don't tell me that you're more freaked out about my 'monthly issue' than I am of yours!"

She continued giggling quietly all the way across the sweeping lawn, attracting a few curious glances from passing students, and ignoring Remus' despondent mutterings about "the problem with girls".

It was only when Lily came to a sudden halt in the Entrance Hall that Remus emerged from his little bubble of horror. His head jerked up violently as his shoe caught Lily's heel, and he made to apologise, but was interrupted by a familiar, unwelcome voice.

"Lily."

Remus' eyes shifted forward, knowing exactly who that slimy voice belonged to. It wasn't exactly that he had any personal issue with Severus Snape – it was just that after all these years, James and Sirius' distaste for the Slytherin seemed to have rubbed off on Remus. However, aware of his current company, he swallowed his scowl, and set his face in a blank stare.

"Snape," Lily replied coolly, keeping her eyes fixed on those of the boy in front of her. Remus stared a little harder; could Snape be nervous? He certainly seemed to be twisting his robes in his fingers with a little more pressure than necessary.

"Evans," Snape replied finally, his tone low, his face distorted in an uneasy frown. "It's been a while."

"I'll say," Lily snapped, her fists clenching slightly at her sides. "Though I assumed you'd been too busy spending time with Malfoy and Goyle and that lot to notice."

Remus' eyes widened. Lily and Snape, spend time together? A Slytherin and a Gryffindor with a friendship worth whatever current resentment this was? Well, this would be something to tell the others about.

Right now, however, he just felt vaguely worried for Lily, and increasingly uneasy about the scene before him that had begun to attract a bit of attention from other students. Snape had stepped forward almost menacingly at Lily's words, waving his hand dismissively.

"They're in my House, Lily. That's how it works. And – and we share a lot of interests, you know."

"Oh, I know," Lily said softly, shaking her head in apparent disgust. "Sinking into the Dark Arts like I said you would? You should have stayed my friend, Severus."

"I tried, but-" Snape began almost earnestly, but seemed to stop himself before making too many excuses. Pausing, momentarily at a loss for words, he scanned the curious eyes peering from around the Entrance Hall and finally settled on Remus. His dark eyes narrowed.

"Why are you wasting time with him, anyway?" Snape sneered, glaring now at a surprised Remus. "Where are your friends, Lupin?"

From beside Remus, Lily began to rile dangerously, but before she could spit out a retort, he answered calmly:

"I don't know, Snape, if you're referring to James, Sirius and Peter. But you shouldn't worry about me so much. I was just walking with a close friend," he gestured to Lily, "and we were about to go to Transfiguration."

Remus put a reassuring hand on Lily's shoulder and made to walk past Snape, but he was stopped forcibly by the greasy-haired boy's outstretched arm. Trying very hard to conceal his pain – for Snape had inadvertently knocked one of Remus' many bruises – Remus paused, grimacing inwardly.

Yet it seemed Snape had noticed the fleeting expression of pain darkening Remus' face.

"What's wrong, Lupin? Did you fall over on your way to your poor aunt's bedside during the holidays?"

A couple of watching Slytherins laughed as Snape stared down at Remus, who struggled to keep his face neutral. In truth, Remus wasn't sure what emotion to display. Certainly, Snape had failed to insult his nonexistent aunt, but then again, shouldn't Remus appear angry to keep up with his pretence? It was all so confusing. Somewhere amid the jumble of his mind, Remus had to remind himself not to look too perplexed, and almost laughed out loud in pure anxiety.

Finally, he allowed his natural reaction to carry through somewhat, and coughed out what he hoped was offhand laughter.

"What's it to you, Snape? It looks like you're the one with a bruised ego here."

Remus was mildly pleased with himself. That was a comeback Sirius would probably have been proud of.

Snape glowered now, towering over Remus with his wand suddenly in his hand. Nerves clawed at Remus' stomach, reminding him of his utter inability to both defend himself and effectively curse an enemy. Nonetheless, with a quiet sigh, he removed his own wand from his robes, and pointed it with false confidence at the Slytherin before him.

"What are those scratches on your face, then?" Snape asked quietly, his voice becoming dangerously silky, and the murmuring of spectators ceased for a moment. "Did you get into some trouble during summer?"

Lily's voice suddenly broke through to the pair, a shrill note of warning evident in her words. "Leave him alone, Snape. What's he ever done to you?"

"I'll leave him alone when he leaves you alone, Evans," Snape said with more volume, his eyes still fixed on Remus'. "Does your daddy leave you alone, Lupin? Or does he beat you during the holidays? Is that why you've got so many scars?"

Remus' face whitened considerably. He could feel the burn of hundreds of eyes on his back, and he had absolutely no response for this malicious question.

"You go to hell, Snivellus," a familiar voice suddenly announced from the direction of the staircase.

Remus swung around, his wand still extended before him, his chest swelling with relief. Finally; the cavalry arrives. From his peripheral vision, he saw Lily move towards him, and felt her hands gently press on his shoulders as she attempted to move the two boys apart.

Snape snarled under his breath. He, like Remus, had turned abruptly to see a glowering Sirius begin to stalk towards the pair, James closely following. Remus absently noted, with some faint beat of humour, that Peter had stayed safely at the foot of the staircase.

"Everyone knows that your mum hits you, why take it out on Remus?" Sirius continued dangerously. Remus shook his head slightly, willing his friend to play fair. Be better than your enemy, that's the Gryffindor way, right?

When no immediately retort was shot back at Sirius, Remus turned his head slightly to glance at Snape, and immediately knew he shouldn't have. Snape was visibly trembling with anger. His narrow shoulders heaved as if the Slytherin was trying to control himself, maybe to preserve some dignity, Remus didn't know. As Remus met Snape's eyes, he realised that some boundary had been overstepped. He leg twitched as he felt the instinctual urge to step back, but before he could move-

"Let's see whose bruises have to be explained here!" Snape shrieked, raising his wand over his shoulder, bringing it crashing down with a curse whose words were muffled by a sudden crescendo in the watching crowd's pitch.

A moment later, with a slight ringing in his ears, Remus opened his eyes to stare out into the silent Entrance Hall. What had happened? What had Snape done to him? Why did Sirius and James look so appalled, and why was Lily rushing towards him with her face halfway averted, ripping her cloak hurriedly from around her shoulders?

As a cold draught washed over his chest, Remus glanced down and swayed in horror. His robe and shirt had disappeared. The torn, pale skin of his torso was exposed to the whole school, and nothing, not an abusive father, not his sick aunt, could possibly explain away the jagged lines that claws had torn through his flesh.

As Lily threw her cloak about his shoulders, Remus buried his face in the warm folds. He couldn't bear to look at anyone. He hoped Snape would finish the job right then and there.

"Merlin," came a stunned voice from beside his ear, but Remus refused to raise his head to confirm the obvious truth. "I know you said your rabbit was vicious, but this is something else, Moony."

Remus' heart stopped beating in sudden confusion. Sirius? What was he talking about?

"Yeah," James contributed, stopping very close to where Remus presumed Lily to be standing. "Talk about a furry little problem, eh, Remus?"

Hardly daring to believe his friends' (crazy) ingenuity, Remus slowly pulled his flushed face from its material seclusion and stared as Sirius gave him a rather slow and obvious wink.

"Oi," he choked dazedly, "don't insult Mr Carrot."

He exchanged a startled glance with Lily, who looked like she was about to burst from a mixture of anger, fright, worry, annoyance and laughter, and allowed Sirius to wrap a reassuring arm around his shoulders.

"Snivellus will pay for this," Sirius muttered, antagonism etched into his tone. Snape had obviously departed promptly after throwing his curse; Remus couldn't say he was sorry about that.

Remus watched as James nodded his affirmation. Remus continued watching, with a growing puzzlement, as James stepped around his two friends in a would-be casual manner to reach for Lily's shoulder.

"You alright, Evans?" he asked loudly, in what was evidently supposed to be a calming and mature manner.

"Of course I am," Lily snapped, looking a little taken aback. "And don't do anything to Snape, okay? You know full well that Black provoked him."

"Are you defending that nutter?" James demanded incredulously, his hand falling off Lily's shoulder in his amazement. "Did you see what he just did to Remus?"

Lily glared right into James' spectacles and nodded fiercely. "Of course I did. But how could he know what Remus had on his back?"

Sirius' eyes widened as he seemed to realise something. "How could _you_ know-"

James interrupted him. "You're right, Evans, I'm sorry. Snape was completely justified. Would you like to discuss this matter further on Saturday night with me?"

Three sets of eyes darted to James' grinning face as he waited for Lily's response. Privately, Remus wondered if his friend had somehow lost his mind, and whether it had joined his shirt and robe.

"N-no," Lily spluttered, then, "wait. You were just asking me out, weren't you?"

James nodded, seemingly undeterred.

"Then no!" Lily said forcefully, turning on her heel and beginning to walk towards the staircase.

"Almost," James said wistfully, presumably to himself, and Sirius snapped his fingers questioningly in front of his bespectacled friend.

"Is it just me, or are _you_ the nutter here, Potter?" Sirius laughed incredulously. "Can anyone say 'bad timing'?"

James' face twisted into an expression of hope. "You think she would have said yes if I'd asked her at some other time?"

Remus shook his head, pleased at least that attention had been taken away from him. What a day. He sincerely hoped that he wouldn't be startled for a little while after this, at least until McGonagall's first surprise test.

**

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**

A/N: So. A little darker this time, perhaps. But oh, alas, dark times plague me in this period of due dates and important assessments. I hope you'll forgive the slight delay in producing this chapter!

**Don't worry too much about this latest little slip in time – I'm going to be staying in Fifth Year for quite a while. Fifth year is definitely the most exciting/traumatic year for the Marauders, so I'm quite looking forward to the next few challenges! **

**Please review, guys – help maintain my motivation and all that through this painful time assessment. Unlike my French lecturers, give me some positive feedback!**

**Thanks so much for reading. Hope you enjoyed. **

**xx Froody**


	9. Quills and Daggers

"So what is it, Potter?" Sirius demanded loudly, sprawled on his back across Peter's four-poster bed, toying with the crimson drapes with a scuffed shoe. "Have you gone completely bonkers for some – some _girl_ or what?"

Remus, marking his place in a dusty old tome with a finger, heaved a sigh and rolled onto his stomach. "James left about ten minutes ago, Sirius. Remember? He said he was going to try to find Lily."

There was a momentary pause, in which Remus began to feel concerned about the note of anger that he'd heard in Sirius' voice. In some ways, it was just plain strange; Remus had never been aware of any antagonism on Sirius' part towards the opposite gender. In fact, since acquiring a set of "Massively Manly Muscles" (as the handsome youth liked to call them) sometime during the year before, Sirius had become quite partial to the fairer sex.

"Oi, Hazel," he would call, proudly raising one tanned bicep into the light, "rest your eyes on this sweet thing."

Peter would undoubtedly snigger at this point, his face seizing into a grin before gradually fading into unmistakeable envy. Hazel, or another unfortunate female student, would either raise her eyebrows sardonically or collapse into giggles, depending on the particular girl's level of maturity.

James would roll his eyes, subconsciously dropping his gaze to his own developing muscles afterwards, and nodding in self-satisfaction.

Remus tried to ignore these moments altogether. This was often the safest strategy.

Right at this moment, however, as the pause stretched into an uncomfortable silence, ignorance was not an option. Evidently, Sirius had determined that it was time for another little chat about James' most recent obsession.

"It used to be quidditch," Sirius said suddenly, and some of the tension that had built in the room lost its edge.

"I know, Sirius," Remus answered, resting his head on his folded arms in anticipation of a lengthy discussion. "And I know that you never really minded about that obsession either. I remember you saying – what was it? 'At least we can both ride a broomstick.'"

Sirius chuckled, and then lapsed back into his former state of moroseness. "Why Lily?" he moaned abjectly, his palms raised to the top of Peter's bed as he smothered his voice in a pile of blankets. "What's so great about her, anyway?"

Remus shook his head. He had heard this argument before. There were many accurate responses to Sirius' question, and Remus was well aware that his friend did not want to hear any of them.

The thing about Sirius Black was that he was the best friend of James Potter. That, simply, was the best way to put it. Sirius and James were a double act. If one was polishing chamber pots for detention in the Hospital Wing, the other one was scrubbing the floor. If one was silently conjuring a pair of stilettos onto poor, tiny Professor Flitwick's feet, the other was asking an extremely complicated question about the nature of growth charms. If one decided to follow a girl through the corridors of Hogwarts, the other donned an invisibility cloak and joined the chase.

Or, at least, that was how it had always been before now. Before James had lost his mind at the beginning of term and asked Lily Evans out, been rejected, and perceived this rejection as a challenge.

Remus reflected sometimes on the nature of infatuation. How many innocent teenage lives, he wondered, had been utterly destroyed by an all-consuming fixation on a girl? Remus knew of two extreme examples. One was Romeo from Shakespeare's celebrated play. The other was James.

He wondered which boy's infatuation would prove to end the most tragically.

Sirius, it seemed, had unknowingly adopted the role of a sceptical Mercutio, and between his frequent lewd comments at Lily's expense (purely for the outrage such joking would provoke from James) he displayed a very real resentment at James' infatuation.

"If it had to be someone, Sirius, at least it's Lily," Remus said finally, trying to inject an extra sense of reasonableness into his tone. "Let's face it, it would be a million times worse if we had to watch James chase Hazel."

Remus watched Sirius scowl briefly, and flex his bicep almost reflexively. The werewolf smiled. Sirius was so deliciously predictable…

"Lily's bad enough. Look Moony," Sirius said more loudly, his register rising, "what is it with girls, anyway? Why chase big green eyes when there are pranks to be played, and mischief to be made?"

Thinking carefully, Remus tried to formulate a response to the real anger pouring out from the vicinity of Peter's bed. He knew that anything he said would ultimately make no difference. Like never before, there were now real emotions at play between the four boys in Gryffindor.

Remus was quite certain that James had started to feel something intangible for Lily, something more concrete than the thrill and anticipation of infatuation. James was too intelligent, and possibly even too mature, to spend so much time trying to secure a date from a girl who didn't mean anything to him. Although the bespectacled Marauder attempted to win Lily's affection in decidedly unromantic and increasingly juvenile ways, his efforts proved that he had begun to invest real emotion into his pursuit.

On the other hand, it had become quite apparent that Sirius' black reaction to James' single-mindedness these days was mostly fuelled by a sense of abandonment. Some girl had come into the picture and driven away his best friend.

Secretly, Remus suspected that the reason that Sirius was taking the whole situation so badly was because he couldn't comprehend James' motives. Perhaps the emotional capacity hadn't developed yet; perhaps Sirius really couldn't see the value of hanging off some girl.

"Bros before hos," Sirius muttered mournfully, waking Remus back to the discussion presently in session.

"Amen, mate," Remus responded with a gentle smile, and held Sirius' gaze as his friend lifted his head appreciatively.

"Promise me you'll never abandon me for some _girl_, Moony," Sirius said solemnly, his face twisting in disgust as he mentioned the despised creatures at the heart of his current misery.

"Never," Remus promised.

"I'm going to hold you to that," Sirius stated forebodingly, kicking his foot towards Peter's drapes again. "No girls. Only Moony."

"Only Sirius," Remus replied, feeling a surprising warmth drift through his body at his friend's touching words. He grinned to himself, knowing he should stop this leg of conversation before it became uncomfortably sentimental. "You're woman enough for me, mate."

Like Remus knew he would, Sirius snorted and threw a sock in the general direction of Remus' bed.

"You missed, Mr Snuffles, like the girly man you long to be," Remus chortled, throwing himself towards his pillow as an incensed Sirius leapt rather gracelessly across the room from Peter's bed to Remus'.

"Stop – calling me – that," Sirius panted, violently thrusting the feathered end of a random quill at Remus, much in the manner of a pirate wielding a sword.

Remus felt remarkably unthreatened.

Finally, as Remus expertly dodged a particularly feathery blow from Sirius' choice weapon, his black-haired opponent overbalanced on his knees and began to fall backwards quite helplessly. His mouth gaped comically as his arms windmilled, the quill thwacking him in the face as he attempted to fling it away in order to gain some balance.

Without thinking, Remus flung himself forward and grabbed Sirius about the neck, latching his feet around the other end of his bed, attempting to stop his friend's imminent injury. Sirius' breath escaped him all at once with a faint "oof" as a torso slammed against his own, Remus' trapped feet the only obstacle between the collapse of both onto the floor.

For a moment, the two boys hung over the edge of Remus' bed dizzily, faces inches apart as Massively Manly Muscles strained and bedposts creaked and Sirius' eyes widened and a door was flung open behind them-

"Wha-" Sirius choked distractedly, but then Remus abandoned his grip around the boy's neck, and Sirius went tumbling backwards off the side of the bed.

"Oops," Remus muttered, turning red, and rolled his eyes at Peter. "You destroyed a perfectly marvellous performance of 'Romeo and Juliet', you know that?"

Peter, who had been gaping at the pair, snapped his mouth shut, and then, after seeming to think quite hard, said, "What, was that the scene where Romeo kills himself?"

Remus, who was actually astounded that Peter knew so much about the play, quickly amassed his thoughts. "Yeah. Juliet here had gone to sleep or something."

"Play dead, werewolf," Sirius growled from somewhere below, and Remus grinned.

"Quiet, Juliet, or I won't let you handle my dagger."

"That's it!" Sirius yelled, pulling himself up off the floor and jumping recklessly back onto the bed, pinning Remus down with all the strength that his beloved biceps could offer.

Peter shook his head at the wrestling pair and headed towards his own bed, dumping his school bag on top of the twisted sheets.

"Say, has anyone seen my quill?"

* * *

**A/N:**

_**"But why, oh why," you cry tearfully, "whyever is this chapter so painfully short?"**_

_**"Alas, my dear reader," I reply, "lack of motivation was the culprit. I simply could not walk through the door after a nine hour day learning about unconscionable conduct in contract law and feel inspired. It was hard enough to even churn this midget chapter out."**_

_**"Alack!" you whimper. "But how can I help to alleviate the disastrous nature of the situation?"**_

**Please review? :) **

**xx Froody**


	10. The Change

It happened one frosty Tuesday morning in late November. The Change. The change that, on reflection, Remus supposed was inevitable. Like all the changes that seemed to occur in the Fifth Boys' Dormitory in the Gryffindor Tower (with the exception of James' recent infatuation with a certain red-head), this change concerned one particularly volatile individual.

Sirius Black.

Although bewildered and, quite frankly, hurt, Remus reluctantly knew that some good had come of this change. Sirius and James were once more attached at the hip, united in smirk, speech, and attitude. Particularly attitude, it had to be said.

Seemingly gone were the days of good-humoured pranking, and frivolous teasing of random students and individuals. From the frosty Tuesday of Change, there were two targets of pranking and teasing which began to take on a decidedly spiteful nature: Severus Snape, and Lily Evans. But the spite did not seem to end with incessantly failing romance and unreasonable dislike.

For some obscure reason, ever since Sirius had changed, his attitude towards Remus had become as glacial as the weather.

Thankfully, James, through the glaze of his infatuation, still seemed to value Remus as a friend. Peter, of course, was a constant. But somehow, because it was Sirius' rejection, the hurt burned at Remus. He had taken to burying himself in books in his breaks, just to avoid the reminders of the bizarre estrangement that had unexpectedly surfaced.

There were a few paltry positives in this arrangement. As James and Sirius' pranking took on an increasingly malicious tone, Remus did not feel pressured to participate, as he had before. Deep, deep, down, he knew that this was a positive. Unfortunately, the jarring, constant ache seemed to lie at the surface of his consciousness. While the prefect breathed a sigh of relief, the person kicked empty cans.

Particularly grating was Sirius' newfound appreciation of his own good looks. Slight awareness had been transfigured into egotistical satisfaction – or so it appeared to Remus, and to the rest of the student body. Unlike Remus, however, a good half of the student body didn't seem to particularly mind this change.

As James, taking the cue from his best mate, began to ruffle volume through his unruly hair whenever Lily walked into the room, Sirius was contrastingly cool. His pale grey eyes did not appear to see a need to improve his regular appearance, and so, as he lounged languidly with the Marauders, he merely tilted his head at odd intervals, allowing his long fringe to settle like a silky curtain across his face.

Remus regularly found himself staring at these odd mannerisms so readily adopted by his friends. Both Sirius and James had become infuriatingly, bizarrely shallow. While one felt compelled to adopt a rebelliously messy style, the other leaned towards shade and style. Undoubtedly, both found themselves utterly irresistible in a 'bad boy' persona.

Eventually, exasperated, somehow disillusioned, Remus would assure himself that this was just a phase, some ritual for teenage boys that he would hopefully manage to avoid. There was just no use preening for an audience when your mousy locks became tufts of steely grey fur once a month.

It was odd how Remus seemed to have been catapulted into the aggrieved position that Sirius had adopted just weeks ago. What was so good about girls anyway? Whatever magical, curvy, soft and delicate answer could attempt to satisfy, Remus simply couldn't understand.

So as Sirius grew colder, and girls began approaching the little group of four more regularly, Remus became more familiar with the library. Although it was only occasionally that Remus found himself stranded at the outer edge of a personal joke, a quidditch stratagem, an evaluation of a girl, he still felt fundamentally left behind.

Thankfully, Peter neither tossed nor straightened his hair, and attracted even less attention from girls than Remus. This was a strong source of comfort. At least Remus could be sure that he hadn't just missed some Fifth Year Boys' train or something.

However, despite becoming resigned to the unwelcome change in Sirius, nothing prepared Remus for the cacophony that greeted him one Thursday morning as he hurried towards breakfast, very aware of his tardiness.

"I got some charms, baby," James was crooning. His husky voice could have been quite pleasing, Remus duly noted, if it hadn't been so jarringly off-key.

"There's some sparks between us, girl," Sirius sang, swivelling his hips in a presumably provocative manner. Unfortunately for the female populace of Hogwarts, the billowing school robes were not particularly capable of clearly demonstrating such salacious dance moves.

Remus stood at the entrance to the Great Hall, arms folded, staring, slightly bewildered, at the sight that greeted him.

Gryffindor table. At the end closest to the teachers. Two very familiar boys atop the cloth. Three upturned bowls of cereal. Several displaced pieces of toast. And a very red-faced Professor McGonagall…

And he had thought that he was a jaded Marauder. He thought he had seen it all. But singing? A theatrical stage performance, why not, but Remus had never expected to see James willingly take to the stage in order to exercise his vocal muscles. Sirius – quite possibly.

But what on earth had prompted this little display? And who on earth was responsible for the absolutely tragic lyrics of the song?

As Sirius stamped one school shoe rhythmically on the tabletop, and Dumbledore clapped along most amiably, Remus could sense a building climax. Clasping each other's shoulders and shimmying, Sirius and James began to point directly at McGonagall, yodelling an ambitious duet:

"I know to whom my eyes will bee-line:

Our own Transfiguration feline!"

Remus' face shifted into an incredulous, reluctant smile as the entire school body leapt to its feet in applause, clapping a blushing Professor McGonagall who, despite this congratulatory performance, looked perfectly ready to murder two particular Fifth Year students.

"Excellent, most excellent!" Dumbledore's beaming voice rang out over the applause, and he gestured grandly to the bowed-head woman slumping deep in her seat beside him. "Please do get up, Minerva, and demonstrate your new-won talent!"

With an air of exceeding reluctance, McGonagall climbed to her feet, removed her pointed hat resignedly, and, before Remus could blink, disappeared. A flood of whispers spread through the Great Hall.

"Look there!" Sirius yelled in excitement from his exemplary vantage point atop the Gryffindor table. He pointed dramatically at the seemingly empty seat beside a clapping Dumbledore.

Remus stepped a little further into the Hall and gazed down towards the front. Now that he looked more closely, there did appear to be some movement, and look, a patch of sleek fur…

The Hall gasped as one as a cat suddenly leapt from McGonagall's abandoned seat and onto the table. Remus found himself grinning as Dumbledore chuckled, pushing a plate of kippers towards the transformed professor.

"A lesson to you all!" the headmaster cried, brandishing his goblet to the students in a toast. "Perhaps, with this wonderful new Animagus as an inspiration, you will all begin to work harder at mastering your Transfiguration skills!"

Sirius snorted loudly from the top of the table, earning a pointed glare from James, and the raised eyebrows of many students in the hall.

"Enough table dancing, Black!" someone shouted from the direction of the Slytherin table, and Remus could have sworn that Sirius was about to introduce a certain bird to this student, definitely a bad idea with a watchful cat right in front of him. Luckily, James grabbed Sirius before he could land himself a detention for indecent gestures, and the two Gryffindor boys toppled off the table with a distinct lack of grace.

"You could both take some lessons from our beloved Professor," Remus said with half a grin as he walked up to the tangle of limbs and black hair. "Cats always land on their-"

"Don't need to," James said shortly, winking at Remus. "Now, d'you reckon I should serenade Lily while my vocal chords are warmed up?"

"Mate," Sirius said, almost gently, a semblance of sympathy in his voice as he wrapped an arm around James' shoulders and propelled him towards the Entrance Hall. "I think the world has heard enough of our genius for a few hours."

Remus settled himself in to a hasty breakfast, grabbing one of the places vacated by his friends, and hoped his piece of toast had avoided the grubby heels of James' shoes.

"Why a cat?" Peter said in distaste, looking quite disgruntled over his own plate of sausages as he gazed towards Professor McGonagall, who had just readopted her human form.

"What's wrong with cats?" Remus asked, roughly swallowing a mouthful of toast.

"I don't know," Peter replied distantly, still staring forward. "Those claws and all. They're not friendly, you know."

Remus snorted. "You should see _my_ claws-" he began to say, and then stopped himself, stuffing another slice of toast into his mouth before he could continue to blather his secrets to his fellow students.

"I dunno," Peter said, apparently oblivious to Remus' slip-up. He shuddered. "There's just something about their teeth…. Rats! We're going to be late to Potions!"

Hastily swigging some pumpkin juice from the only upstanding goblet nearby, Remus stood and followed Peter out of the Hall. He groaned silently to himself as he thought of the lesson ahead. Remus was not particularly skilled in Potions. Unfortunately, ever since the Change, Peter had been his constant partner, which seemed to lead unfailingly to disaster…

* * *

Blue. Remus felt blue. Not cornflower, nor sky, nor sapphire; more of a melancholy navy.

OWLs were slowly but surely approaching. James had made no progress in his pursuit of his fair maiden. Indeed, Lily had begun to show a certain irritation to even Remus. It seemed that he was unfortunately associated with the rest of the Marauders despite his long-standing friendship with his fellow prefect. He had barely started contemplating what to get his friends for Christmas. Potions was continuing to be an unmitigated disaster. And Sirius appeared to be making an effort to start his first proper conversation with Remus since the Change.

Sirius casually reclined on Remus' bed, upsetting a carefully balanced pile of starched pyjamas. It was hard not to notice the severe contrast between the old bouncing, familiar Sirius, and this new, aloof teenager.

Remus felt his eyes linger on the long, pale lines of Sirius' unsmiling face.

"Something different with your hair, Moony?" Sirius asked lazily, glancing shortly at Remus' head.

Remus felt himself grimace. He tried to quell the sudden burn of anger that this question had provoked. Of course it didn't matter that Sirius hadn't noticed, or mentioned this fact earlier. It had only been two days since Peter had accidentally turned Remus' hair blue in Potions.

"Yeah. I tried out your leave-in conditioner, Sirius."

"Well, turn it back to blonde, already, mate," Sirius sighed. "It suits you."

"It's light brown, thanks very much for noticing," Remus bit out, a little harder than he'd intended.

"Nah, it's dull blue. Let me grab my wand-"

"I don't need your help,"

"What's been your problem lately, Moony?" Sirius ground out, sitting up, slapping the side of the bed as he turned to face his friend properly.

Despite his increasingly blue situation, Remus saw red.

"My problem? _You_ are asking _me_ what _my_ problem is?"

"Yeah, I am, Lupin!" Sirius shouted, sliding off the bed fluidly, swiping down the pile of starched pyjamas in one frustrated gesture. "What's up with you? You don't help us prank people anymore! You've always got your head stuck in a book! You never- you never smile, or talk to me, or-"

"Wait a minute," Remus interrupted, his voice decidedly icy. "You're the one who hasn't talked to me for three weeks."

Sirius scoffed, throwing his hands into the air, but seemed to have no other response to this accusation. "Look, me and Prongs, we've discovered the world of girls, alright mate? You should look into it sometime. A lot more interesting than books, anyway."

Remus tried to ignore the heated sensations of hurt and inferiority that suddenly coursed through his body. He reminded himself that Sirius was suffering in an insular world of teenage hormones at the moment, and that his hurtful words could thus be ignored.

It was difficult to believe this pitiful reasoning.

"Why have you been bullying Snape so badly?" Remus demanded, screwing his hands into fists as he glared at Sirius. "And why the hell did you just call James 'Prongs'? Have I missed much else while you two have been busy chasing girls around the castle?"

For some reason, just like that, Sirius seemed to deflate, throwing himself back down onto the bed and shaking his head, his face a thundercloud.

"It's not bullying, Moony," he finally muttered.

Remus wondered if Sirius could possibly be ashamed of himself. It was doubtful.

"Look, Snivellus has been really… inquisitive lately. About you, Moony. He keeps insulting you, you know. Only you don't know, because me and Prongs, we've been trying to… well, we've been getting at him like he's trying to get at you, okay?"

Anxiety swelled in Remus' chest, and his heart rate immediately picked up pace. "You've been cursing him all this time for – for me?"

Sirius nodded silently, his face averted. Remus noted dully that his cool had melted in the heat of his anger.

"I wish you wouldn't," Remus sighed, pressing a hand to his eyes and bobbing his head forward rhythmically as if to dispel his growing headache.

An uncomfortable silence stretched for a full two minutes before Sirius reached over and gently prised Remus' fingers from his face.

Remus looked up. As his blurry vision cleared, he noted that the Sirius sitting next to him was the old Sirius, the familiar Sirius, with an expression stuck halfway between irritation and anxiety, just like in the old days. The two boys gazed at each other for a moment. Sirius' stormy eyes were unreadable.

"The full moon's in two days," he said suddenly, an unnerving smile clutching at the corners of his mouth despite the faint air of nervousness behind his sudden movements. Remus could only nod and widen his eyes as Sirius heaved himself to his feet, crossing to the centre of the room with an expression of concentration of his face.

"I'm not the one to tell you about Prongs," Sirius announced with a slight rigidity about his stance, "but I hope this helps to explain something to you."

Remus felt oddly terrified as he watched his friend close his eyes in meditation. Quite frankly, the lack of explanation and the cryptic comments offered by Sirius did not create a peaceful atmosphere. Remus was rent by confusion and breathless anticipation as Sirius screwed up his face in concentration and then-

Disappeared?

"Merlin, you've gone and disapparated yourself for some unknown reason, and now you're probably splinched yourself and ended up with your legs here and your shiny hair in Dumbledore's morning tea," Remus muttered distractedly to himself in panic, before noticing that the 'legs' remaining in the dormitory had grown long dark fur and a lolling tongue and-

"Good lord," Remus whispered, plopping himself down on the bed from his panicky half-crouch. "You've actually done it." He laughed, a note of hysteria clearly evident in his voice. "Where's your song, eh? 'Transfiguration canine'?"

As Remus buried his head in his hands, shaking slightly all over, he felt the warm pressure of a distinctively doggy snout on his thigh and parted his fingers.

"Hello, Sirius," he whispered weakly. He watched, mute, as the dog transformed itself back into his friend, who shook his familiar black fringe across his eyes above a wide smile.

"It's Padfoot, now, Moony. Aren't many girls who I'd do that for, eh?" Sirius grinned, clearly enjoying Remus' reaction, but there was an element of disproportionate disappointment in his eyes as he turned to reach for a can of deodorant on his bedside table.

Remus didn't know whether to be happy or regretful that Sirius turned before he could see the fat tears lines glistening on Remus' cheeks.

* * *

****

A/N: Oooh, angsty adolescence. I hope I'm painting a clear picture of how Sirius and James became the berks portrayed in Book Five.

**So anyway. I've decided not to update until I receive one million reviews.**

**Or maybe until everyone goes and google image's Damien Sargue, who is actually the best incarnation of Sirius I have ever seen in my life. :) Also, if anyone is into gorgeous, gorgeous French music, youtube the song "Aimer" from Roméo et Juliette, featuring my Sirius look-alike.**

**xx Froody**


	11. Tragic to the Moon

**A/N: The title of this chapter comes from Dorothea McKellar's famous Aussie poem, "My Country". Look it up, it's gorgeous.**

* * *

"So who are you trying to impress today, Padfoot?" James drawled, flipping his messy hair forward in a graceless mimic of his friend's habitual mannerism.

Remus looked up from his History of Magic text to catch sight of a decidedly odd expression on Sirius' face before it transformed into a refined look of boredom, which was directed at a smirking James.

"I don't have to work to impress anyone, Prongs," Sirius said dryly, rolling his eyes, but from across the room, Remus noted that he didn't meet James' gaze afterwards.

"But you looked like you were totally focussed on the book in Moony's hands, mate," James laughed, gesturing towards the watching Remus, who looked back to Sirius in vague puzzlement. Since when was Sirius interested in studying for History of Magic? True, OWLs were only months away, but catching Sirius studying was a rare experience akin to catching Father Christmas with his hand in your stocking.

"Well, look, you know, it's just possible that I experienced a fleeting moment of existential guilt for not having picked up a book this year, what with OWLs and all," Sirius said defensively, earning a disbelieving snort from James.

"What kind of fleeting moment makes you stare at Remus' book for five minutes without blinking?" the bespectacled boy grinned, glancing around the Common Room. "Is it Marie? Is she into the intellectual types?"

"If she was, wouldn't she just pick up a Ravenclaw?" Remus put in with a raised eyebrow. "Anyone from Gryffindor with half a brain is in the know about Sirius' particular studying habits."

"Or lack thereof," Sirius murmured gloomily, but James appeared to remain unconvinced.

"Fine, tell me later then," he sighed, resting his head back on his arms as he reclined before a nearby fireplace. "I'll just go back to dreaming about Mum's plum pudding with brandy butter…"

"I can't believe it's nearly Christmas," Peter said, looking about at his friends with wide eyes. "It feels like we just got off the Hogwarts Express."

"No way, mate," Sirius responded, still looking vaguely discomforted. "I feel like we've been stuck in this institution for a full five years."

Remus rolled his eyes, but refrained from commenting. It was true that a certain cheery atmosphere of bells and carols and powdery snow had begun to infiltrate the castle, but the festive season was no excuse to fall behind in the extremely boring study of the latest Goblin Revolution.

"You know what," Peter said suddenly, attracting Remus' focus back to the conversation, and pulling Sirius' languid gaze, "Tomorrow night is a full moon."

Remus sighed, closing the book over his finger, removed completely from his studies. "Don't I know it," he said mournfully. It was easier to succumb to the attractions of self-pity amidst holiday cheer.

"What about it?" Sirius said, sounding bored. Or maybe not quite bored, Remus thought. A note of something bordering on wariness was present in his voice.

Peter perked up excitedly, prodding James on the belly as he did so. James yelped. Everyone ignored him.

"Well, come on! I've finally managed to master the change," he whispered eagerly, earning an extremely strangled smile from Remus, who was still subjected to a veritable wreath of emotions when reminded of his friends' efforts.

"I'm not sure 'master' is the accurate verb to use in this situation," Sirius muttered unkindly. James glared at him, and raised himself to the effort of participating in the conversation.

"Pete, you've been great with the change ever since we gave you some pointers, right, Sirius?" he said, a hint of anger in his voice. James, the eternal protector, the teenager of surprising (selective) maturity that Lily Evans was never privy to.

"Right," Sirius said with false brightness. "So you're saying we should actually do it this time? Help Remus with the transformation, you mean," he said much more quietly, his dark eyes serious as he gazed around at his three friends.

James nodded grimly. "Me and you, we would've been able to do it last full moon, but Pe- now we're all ready, and it's safer with the three of us, anyway."

Remus' knuckles turned white as he balled sweaty hands into fists.

So difficult to listen to the excitement of Peter, the erstwhile flippancy of Sirius, James' talk of 'safety'. So terrible to sit there and listen to the final preparations for what could be tragedy seated in the lofty throne of friendship. But there was nothing else to do.

Even in this scene of heart-felt loyalty and camaraderie, even while Remus' heart swelled with an unending gratitude for his friends' noble efforts, he would never be able to shake off his deep-seated guilt. By all means, the jolly season was alive in the vibrant scheming of three Marauders. Jingling bells and all that charming muggle drivel. But ultimately, a full moon was no Christmas star, and all it led to was danger.

"You all sure about this?" he all but whispered, barely hearing himself above the thrumming of his rocketing heart.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Sirius hissed, throwing himself across his squashy armchair in anger, gripping hard into the cushion. "Do you think we just spent the past three years working our wands away just to rub this opportunity in your face or something?"

From his peripheral vision, Remus saw James raise his head and stare at Sirius, but the lycanthrope himself could do no more than stare at his hands twisting in his lap. It was the moments like these that erupted every now and again that reminded Remus that his friendship with Sirius had never returned to what it had once been. Despite awkward conciliation, carefree humour and unquestioned loyalty had evaporated between the pair.

Peter laughed nervously, a breathy, unappealing sound. "Come on Sirius, you can't pretend that you're not a little bit scared about running around with a werewolf."

The hostile pause that followed this statement seemed to have a profound effect upon poor Peter, who hastily added that nothing would stop him, personally, from joining the others under the full moon.

"Don't feel you have to, Pete," James said simply, before Remus could open his mouth and dare to risk upsetting Sirius further. "Moony wouldn't mind, and neither would we."

"Moony would probably feel better if we all just stayed in and sang bloody carols," Sirius growled. Remus could feel the heat of his scathing appraisal spread across his pale face in a growing flush.

This was terrible. Sirius didn't seem to comprehend the depths of Remus' gratitude for their achievement of animagus status. He didn't understand that, for once, law-breaking had opened an eternal glow into what was sometimes a very dark outlook. At the same time, there was no way that Remus could justify himself in explaining this to his friends. To do so would be to directly ensure the occurrence of their moonlit ventures.

Remus was determined not to direct his friends into danger. There was only a certain threshold of guilt that could be crossed before hysteria began to be an uncomfortable presence in all thoughts.

Thank Merlin for James Potter.

"Why don't you just stay here and whine some more, Sirius?" he snapped, leaping to his feet and confronting his white-lipped friend. "You think Remus isn't giving you enough credit for the fact that you now own your very own set of fleas?"

Remus, cringing internally but still forever grateful to James, peered anxiously around the Common Room to see if any unwelcome attention had been caught by the rather loud conflict. Thankfully, it appeared that the late hour had seen most Gryffindors traipse up to bed at some earlier point.

Watching the tension build between the infamously inseparable pranksters eventually galvanised Remus into action, and he ventured forth with what he hoped was an appeasing explanation. It was certainly true.

"I just don't want anyone to get hurt on my account," he mumbled, feeling quite useless, and painfully undeserving of his friends. "I am unaccountably grateful for Sirius' newfound collection of blood-sucking insects. I am terrified of how the werewolf will react to your animagus forms. You all deserve much more appreciation than I could ever give you."

When Sirius next spoke, his words were muffled, like he was talking with his face pressed into his hands.

"We're going with you tomorrow night."

"Indeed, we are, my precocious Padfoot," James said breezily, seeming to accept this pacifying remark in all its heated resolve. "Moony, you've known all along that we were going to test this out, so prepare yourself for company."

Remus laughed emptily, pressing his fingers against his eyes, feeling nothing but Sirius' glare and the cold advance of guilt-driven fear.

* * *

Remus always, unfailingly, felt terrible on the morning before a full moon. He was so wearied by his affliction, so sick and strung out with guilt and a raw anticipation garnered from a sleepless night that he found no more protestations passing his teeth.

Let them risk their lives for a brisk, moonlit jaunt with a Dark Creature. Let them play around with a monster who could not distinguish friend from foe. It's not like anything he could say would change their minds, anyway.

After breakfast, during which Remus could not summon the energy or inclination to take even a bite of toast, he was led by his friends – notably including a concerned, scowling Sirius – to whatever class was first. He barely even noticed Snape's open, sneering appraisal of his deadened appearance as he stumbled past the Slytherins' table on the way to the Entrance Hall.

The day passed painfully, each aching hour drawing Remus closer to the dreaded transformation. He could almost feel the physicality of the moon's sway over his body from beyond the horizon.

At last, with one last wearied glance of warning and gratitude and anxiety to his equally anxious friends, he allowed himself to be taken by the arm by Madam Pomphrey, who tutted over his poor state.

"Look at you, even more tired than normal, poor dear. Perhaps a sleeping draught is due next month. Step over the tree root, there, dear."

Remus complied, the chill air and gathering darkness lending him a nervous energy that pricked up his senses and seemed to ease his fatigue. After being deposited by Madam Pomphrey into the narrow tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow like normal, he turned back and attempted to offer her a grateful smile.

"On you go, dear, and remember to remove your clothing before the transformation this time. There's only so many pairs of extra robes I can bring you."

And on through the tunnel, its cramping space so horribly familiar. At the end of the tunnel, the staircase, and then the room itself. Dumbledore had described the Shrieking Shack to Remus' parents as a type of sanctuary, the humane alternative to a cage. Remus viewed this description of a cruel joke, even through his overwhelming appreciation for the headmaster's kindness.

A haven of destruction, torn drapes, broken furniture, splatters of dried blood, cushions gutted of feathers and feathers strewn across dusty floorboards, this room was a stifling cage of misery and despair. Although Remus retained no memory of his time as a werewolf save for the physical scars, his human self dulled and blinded by the full moon, he nonetheless waited and awoke in this room of torture. His instincts here were the same as the wolf's.

Here, he was trapped.

Dully, weighed down by the utmost weariness, Remus stumbled across to the familiar sagging mattress and began to remove his shoes. Laces undone, he scuffed his feet out of his sneakers untidily, tugged off his robe with difficulty, and moved on to his shirt.

After three buttons, he stopped, panting lightly. He felt a sheen of sweat break out across his forehead. It took so much effort to undress himself. Madam Pomphrey never seemed to understand that it wasn't just Remus' odd compulsion to destroy his clothes every month.

Finally, he continued. Shirt dangling off his shoulders, he paused again, feeling extremely nauseous. He bent his head into his lap and groaned quietly. It had been a small consolation up until this night that none of his friends had ever seen him so utterly helpless. Even vomiting in the Hospital Wing had seemed to carry more dignity than a complete inability to undress himself.

"You want help?"

An uncertain voice darted across the dusty silence of the room, low and almost tremulous. Remus could barely even force himself to nod. He hardly registered the absolute obscenity of an unsteady Sirius Black, a Sirius Black whose voice could break at merely the sight of his utterly vulnerable friend.

Heavy footsteps thudded cautiously along the wooden floor towards the bed, and Remus allowed his eyes to close, barely flinching when cold fingers gently tugged his shirt off. A slight hiss from Sirius accompanied the touch of icy air on Remus' scarred torso, which cropped up in goose bumps.

"Oh Moony," Sirius almost groaned, his fingers still grasping the shirt, "how can you expect us to stay away when we might be able to stop you from tearing yourself apart?"

Exhausted, and oddly detached from himself, drifting in a state apart from his Self as the moon glowed more strongly against the dim horizon, Remus could make no verbal response. As Sirius brushed the pad of his forefinger along the ridge of a raised scar, Remus slumped wordlessly against his friend, instinctively pressing his face into the warm folds of robes and body heat.

"Prongs is outside the door with Peter," Sirius seemed to be explaining, but Remus only registered low vibrations, which were comforting, like the purring of a cat. "I managed to convince them that Padfoot will be able to control you, the werewolf, I mean, at first, at least."

"Werewolf…" Remus moaned dully into Sirius' robes. "Go, go, please…"

Like a child, Remus felt his body being gathered up, wrapped in the muscular embrace of a protector, held to the warmth even as he felt himself surrendering to the cold face of the moon. Hot tears burned uselessly beneath his eyelids, and with the last stores of his strength, he grasped at Sirius' hands, and pressed them to his face. A luxury, a natal comfort, to cling to a finger, flesh and blood, a human being, salvation amidst the oncoming storm.

"Sirius," he whispered once, desperately, before he was finally torn apart.

* * *

Light. Piercing, cold light, assaulting bleary eyes through paper-thin eyelids. Pounding head. Heavy body. An aching, rising pain…

"Whereeurgh," Remus gurgled incomprehensibly, moaning as the expected pain followed this daring attempt at articulation. He lay motionless on what his heady brain could only assume was the sagging bed, waiting for the expected nausea and burning agony that unfailingly greeted him hand in hand.

They never came.

Dizzy, confused, Remus remained very still, scarcely daring to draw deep breaths, or wiggle his extremities to check that they were present. Finally, he rolled his head heavily across the mattress towards the source of the light, shivering involuntarily as his body reacted to the frigid room. He felt vaguely disoriented. He couldn't remember ever having woken up on any surface nearly so comfortable as the mattress before…

"Wh- aargh!" he choked hoarsely as his streaming eyes alit upon antlers which unmistakeably belonged to a mound of sleeping deer barely two metres away. Bizarrely, a slumbering rodent appeared to be curled on the middle of the stag's silver coat. The tearing agony that seared his throat allowed Remus the unfortunate insight that he had not somehow evaded all the pain of transformation.

A low chuckling began abruptly from somewhere across the room. Remus found himself unable to twist his neck to meet the eyes that were watching his befuddled actions.

"Sirius?" he whimpered, scarcely caring about the pathetic strain in his voice, the infantile sense of vulnerability he was undoubtedly exuding.

Just as abruptly, the laughter ceased, and, just like the night before, Remus heard the hurried thudding of footsteps, bare feet on a dusty floor, which stopped right beside the mattress. Two knees thudded promptly to the floor, and Remus was greeted with two anxious grey eyes right before his own.

"How do you feel, Moony?" soft lips whispered from much too close, and Remus, still removed from normal cognitive functions, disoriented and dizzy, felt the rush of foreign air against his icy skin, and closed his eyes without a murmur.

He stirred slightly as warm arms wrapped tightly around his narrow chest, relieving some of the cold even as the erstwhile twinging of new cuts erupted into a merciless stinging. A crate of butterbeer and several kilograms of chocolate could not have provided Remus with a more profound warmth or satisfaction.

James was alive. Peter was alive. Sirius was undeniably alive, and, despite familiar aches and the burn of fresh scars, Remus himself felt like he might really be able to live with his lycanthropy after all.

It was just a pity that he'd managed to rip himself out of another pair of unsalvageable trousers.

**

* * *

**

A/N: Ah, the first true hints of imminent fluff – finally, this story may be consolidating its slashy basis! But I suppose we'll have to wait and see what happens next, eh? ;) I hope that some of my dear readers may find satisfaction in knowing that, yes, romance is entwined in the plot of this story.

**Yeah, maybe a little early for a Christmas-y fic, but here's to longing for the holidays. Hey, if Myer can start putting up Christmas decorations now, I can start writing about it. ;)**

**Let me know what you thought of the Marauders' first moonlit venture! Personally, I just love the angsting and the uncertainty and the ultimate solidarity that defines the four friends. (For now, at least.) **

**Question: Who wants to help Sirius undress Remus in the Shrieking Shack? Rowr. **

**And, hmm, what have I forgotten? Oh, right:**

**REVIEW!**

**xx Froody**


	12. Mischief Mapping

"Oh, come off it, Moony; we appreciate that you're all Hard-Working and Intellectual these days, but remove your head from that book right now and come with me!"

Remus started. For once, he had been absorbed in a text book. He found revision for Defence Against the Dark Arts to be quite fascinating, to tell the truth – especially the study of Dark Creatures.

He shifted in his seat, twisting his shoulders around to peer at an impatient-looking Sirius, who was inexplicably covered in mud.

"What's this? You've never had a problem with my studying before," Remus remarked sarcastically, sighing quietly and flinging the book down on a nearby library bench. "And how did you even find me here? I wasn't aware you knew that the library existed."

"You kidding?" Sirius said, his eyes alight in melodramatic disbelief. "Madam Pince and I, we're like this." He gesticulated with his hands. "Why, it was only yesterday that-"

"Sirius Black?" an outraged voice suddenly interrupted, causing the two boys to guiltily whip their heads around. The librarian herself, hands occupied by a towering stack of mouldy tomes, was glaring directly at their table, and, more exclusively, at the mud-covered apparel sported by Sirius.

"Me?" Sirius asked innocently, pointing a finger at himself in apparent confusion.

"Mud!" screeched Madam Pince, becoming increasingly unsteady with rage under her pile of books. "Mud! Again! I told you only yesterday, now out! You will not befoul my books!"

Widening his eyes at Sirius, who seemed to be making every effort not to burst out into an explosion of giggling, Remus stuffed his books inside his bag and slung it over his shoulder. As he followed Sirius out of the library (at a notably hurried pace), he rolled his eyes and reminded himself to study in a darker and less obvious corner next time.

"I swear, Sirius, you'll get me permanently kicked out of the library along with you, and then where will I study for the OWLs without having to put up with you?"

"You better be careful not to mention the OWLs once we're out there with the others," Sirius warned, his eyes glinting with humour. "You might give Wormtail another panic attack."

Remus flung his hands out in exasperation, hitting Sirius in what could have been an accident. "It wasn't my fault he fainted in the middle of breakfast last week – all I did was remove my study schedule from my bag!"

Sirius laughed, swatting Remus' hand away. "Yeah, and mentioned the fact that you'd scheduled yourself four hours a day of study for each subject. I think he may have forgotten to breathe when you started babbling on about all the practical exams we're going to have to take. You know Pete can't stand the idea of demonstrating skills to examiners by himself."

Remus shuddered. "I'm not overly fond of the prospect myself. Hence why you should have let me keep cramming random facts into my mind."

Sirius scoffed. "Who needs study anyway? Prongs and I-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Don't rub it in. Some of us actually need to study to ace our exams," Remus said darkly. "And what's with the nicknames, anyway? Wormtail? Does this mean I'm really going to have to start calling you 'Padfoot'? How did James come up with that, anyway?"

"Well, let's see," Sirius began wryly, "the other option appeared to be 'Mr Snuffles', and there was no way I was going to take that. I think he reconsidered when I started calling him 'Bambi'…"

"Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs," Remus sighed. "Marauding away mischievously under the moonlight. Squandering hours of study at the same time, mind you."

"Oh, shush," Sirius said breezily, turning his head in mock disdain and catching Remus' glance with a wide grin. "Just enjoy it, yeah? Animals like us don't bother with the whole studying thing, you know. Live on the wild side, Moony."

Remus looked away, a smile curling across his face. _Animals like us_. He was no longer the only Fifth Year Gryffindor with a penchant for transforming into a hairy beast every once in a while. Of course, he wasn't so sure that either Sirius or James needed to transform to become destructive animals, and certainly not in order to swamp themselves in the elements…

"Do I even want to ask about the mud, Padfoot?" Remus sighed dryly, emphasising the new nickname with a slightly mocking tone. "Where exactly are we going, anyway?"

"Down by the lake," Sirius said easily, neglecting to comment further. "And what's so bad about a bit of mud, eh?" He grinned beguilingly at Remus, one eyebrow raised into his sweeping fringe, waving his mud-slickened robes towards his friend, who cringed away instinctively.

"Ask Madam Pince!" Remus yelped, skipping to the far side of the corridor, dodging slightly as Sirius made to corner him and undoubtedly share his filth around. "Yuck, Sirius! I just got these cleaned!"

Sirius rolled his eyes and, laughing, attempted to grab Remus into a very muddy, unwelcome embrace, but was pushed away. As Remus flung his arms around in expectation of a second attack, he suddenly noticed that Sirius' laughter had stopped. Sheepishly, he lowered his arms, pulling at his robes where they had gathered about his face, and stared down the corridor at his friend's retreating back.

"Sirius?" he called, bewildered. "Were you going to wait for me, or what?"

The lack of response that greeted his question made Remus slightly worried, a tinge of anger in his thoughts. What had just happened? He jogged to catch up to Sirius, who said nothing even as Remus strode into step beside him.

"What's up?" Remus asked, hoping to keep his tone neutral while he figured out what had upset his friend this time. There was no questioning it; something had undeniably rubbed Sirius the wrong way, just like every other time. The wild swings of moodiness had not ceased. Remus had hoped that once they had all been marauding under the moonlight a few times, and Sirius had seen how much their efforts were appreciated, things might return to normal.

But no. Things between them remained obscurely skewed. Remus often felt that Sirius resembled that muggle toy, the one that spun up and down, oscillating between moods, spinning from smiles to smirks to scowls and all things in between.

The heavy cloud undoubtedly roiling in the space directly between Sirius' head and the ceiling of the corridor began to filter into Remus' headspace, as feelings of injustice and a growing frustration filled his thoughts.

But then, glorious distraction! On the staircase ahead, Remus spied a glint of fiery hair, and then an emerald eye, and a spontaneous smile evaded his gloomy mood and appeared on his face. Lily. A friend apart from the crazy, moody bunch that his general happiness seemed to revolve around.

He lifted a hand in greeting, and was rewarded with a brilliant smile, which wilted slightly at the sight of the mud adorning Remus' robes, and failed entirely at the sight of Sirius' stormy countenance thundering along beside the lycanthrope. Remus' bad mood returned in its entirety as Lily lowered her hand after a half-hearted wave and turned away without a word.

The day was clearly leaping from high point to high point. Stupid James. Stupid Sirius. For the millionth time, he wished that they would just grow some maturity and wash off the mud.

* * *

"_Waddiwasi_!"

Four friends, absolutely drenched in what appeared to be sticky, lumpy brown mud, looked at each other, and burst into gasps of hilarity. Remus noted distractedly that Sirius' arm was slung about his shoulders, a muddy hand probably preparing itself to rub an extra clod of loose dirt into Remus' face, and he decided to take this with a grin.

Yes; as Peter and James began to absolutely howl with laughter, a new squelchy addition having recently arrived at the side of Remus' head, a rather drippy smile was undeniably the way to go. Undoubtedly, Sirius thought so too, but before any further comment could be made, there was still Filch to be dealt with.

Eventually, the four muddy boys quietened, unnerved by the silence of the caretaker standing rigidly before them in the hallway. Usually, Filch would have been oiling up his Iron Maiden by this point.

Daring, Sirius tugged on Remus' soggy sleeve and caught his attention. "Pity _he_ isn't chewing gum, eh?" he stage whispered, winking at the crimson caretaker, and prompting James to smack him upside the head.

Remus rolled his eyes. Just like Sirius. Goad the apoplectic janitor into a detention-spouting fire hydrant. What harm could possibly come from that?

Filch appeared to be trying to speak. Mrs Norris wound sleekly around his feet as the boys waited.

"M-mud," he stammered in a raspy voice. "Mud, all over my corridor." The Marauders peered at each other in considerable surprise. Filch's words lacked a certain familiar bite. Indeed, the caretaker looked vaguely queasy. Remus wondered if they should call Madam Pomphrey, but gave up the notion as Filch continued.

"But you showed Peeves what's what," he stated slowly, shaking his grimy head. "Gum up the nose… well, that might teach him a thing or two about sticking chewing gum beneath the school desks, won't it?"

Remus exchanged an incredulous glance with James, who, under the guise of pushing his spectacles up his muddy nose, was covertly gesturing to the other two. Following the urgent gesticulation, Remus' gaze landed upon a statue of a one-eyed witch at the side of the passageway, and he immediately understood.

As Filch continued his inner vacillation, evidently sweating over the question of which he despised more – Peeves or the Marauders or perhaps even mud – the four boys began shifting slowly backwards. There was a breathless moment as Peter seemed to slip on his mud-soaked robes, yet just as he grabbed wildly at the old witch's hump, Sirius whispered "_dissendium_", and the boys tumbled through the entrance.

As soon as they were safe from Filch's dithering grasps, they all collapsed against the cold stone walls and cackled with laughter.

Finally, wiping tears of mirth, and, admittedly, relief, from his eyes, Remus turned sharply to Sirius, who was attempting to shove his wand back into his pocket while doubled over with laughter.

"How did you figure it out? _Dissendium_? This is the passage to Honeydukes, isn't it? That's bloody brilliant!"

"You've been in here before?" James demanded, peering curiously at his two friends, and interrupting Sirius as he was about to reply. "You didn't tell me about a secret passageway leading to chocolate and sweets and illicit opportunities!"

"Yeah, we stumbled down to the cellar beneath Honeydukes one time, and managed to creep our way back to Hogwarts undetected," Sirius boasted casually, winking obviously at Remus. "But it's not secret. Well, not entirely. Well, I'm pretty sure we're the only ones who know about it at this point, anyway."

"What are you talking about?" Peter said with an air of exasperation. Remus wondered if the sweet-lover was just impatient to make the most of this newfound opportunity to visit a lolly shop outside of Hogwarts weekends.

Sirius began walking down the corridor, brushing a hand nonchalantly along the side of the narrow passage. "I worked out how to get back down here using a map. There was a list of spells and passageways. It was simple."

"A map?" Remus asked, immediately suspicious. "Where did you find this map? If it's got all this information, surely all the professors know about the 'secret' passageways as well."

"I swiped it from Hagrid's cabin in second year," Sirius said, smirking at James, who was looking positively thrilled by this new development. "There's a good, dusty bookshelf in there that's simply overflowing with groundkeeper information that has probably never been touched. I found the map stuck in an old Charms book when I was looking for those Lily Love Letters that Prongs likes to write."

Here there was a pause, as Remus, Sirius and Peter snickered, while James scowled.

Thing is," Sirius continued, looking at the others smugly, "it's not really a map in the traditional sense. It's more of a list of entrances accompanied by opening spells."

"So there are more?" James whispered with excitement, looking almost overcome with the magnitude of this discovery. "And some of them lead _out_ of the school?"

"Well, it makes sense," Remus said uncomfortably as the others turned to look at him. "I mean, we all know that there's a passage beneath the Whomping Willow that leads to the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade. It makes sense that there are more."

Sirius made a soft sound of exhilaration and pointed a finger directly at Remus. "You're right. And you know what? That entrance isn't included on the list."

"And that means?" Peter asked, puzzled.

"That means that there are probably hundreds more secret passages not on the list, and that we're going to have to scour the castle for the rest of our years in a most noble and marauding quest!" James breathed, a look of pure joy alighting his hazel eyes.

"Imagine all the pranking we could do with unlimited access through Hogwarts!" Sirius beamed, and Remus was almost caught up with their elation, though his own pleasure was tempered by a lingering sensation of the familiar guilt. "Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, riding free and easy through a whole new realm of mischief-making!"

"Oh, to be a werewolf prefect, with nutters for friends, and no restrictions," Remus moaned aloud. As the others resumed their previous laughter, he allowed himself to be dragged along down the corridor by Sirius, heading towards Hogsmeade and, undoubtedly, a tummy ache.

"So you're getting your study after all," Sirius muttered, dark eyes flashing as he grinned back along his arm at Remus. "Admit it; this is even better than chapters three through five of _Hogwarts; A History_."

"Breaking all the school rules and potentially the law is not what I'd personally call 'studying'," Remus complained, but he knew that Sirius was well-aware of the half-smile that pulled across his lips.

"Live on the wild side, Moony," Sirius said quietly, tightening his cold and muddy grasp on Remus' hand. To the perceptive werewolf, there seemed to be an oddly wistful note in these words, as if Sirius was phrasing some unvoiced sentiment in a legend that couldn't be decoded without a missing key.

But Sirius said nothing more, and Remus focussed instead on the tugging grasp of the warm hand around his, pulling him steadily through the darkness.

**

* * *

**

A/N: Origins of Marauders Map hopefully not incomprehensible. I thought it was time to establish necessary framework. Do not despair – we're drawing ever-closer to some uncomfortable conclusions, bittersweet moments, the inevitable and gorgeous fluff that we all want. Silly teenage boys just need to learn to be perceptive and get over insecurities…

**Anyone else doing nanowrimo this year? It's the first time I'm attempting it and I'm kinda excited, kinda nervous. I have a fantasy novel wreathed in mythological references that's bursting out of my head, so I figure trying to get down 50 000 words in November could be useful. **

**Oh, and anyone with a livejournal, feel free to add me! I've just opened a new account under the username of huntingsnarks. Extra puppy love to those who get the reference. **

**I'd love to get to know you guys outside of reviews. **

**cough REVIEW.**

**xx Froody**


	13. Dirty Secret

**A/N: Uh oh. Chapter 13. Close enough to a full moon, too. Brace yourselves.**

* * *

Sirius shouted wildly as he was bucked from his broom, his hands clawing through air, plummeting down towards the ground like one of Hagrid's giant pumpkins last Halloween.

Remus stood up with a start, flinging his hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the midday light. Where was James, why wasn't he doing something?

A black speck far above was gradually growing in size as James undoubtedly pelted towards Sirius, but Remus could tell that he'd never make it in time. Remus' heart was frozen in his chest, and he threw his gaze about desperately, looking for some form of help.

Too late.

With an almighty splash that melted Remus' fears of a squished Sirius, the tumbling boy disappeared beneath the lake's surface. A smile of relief dashed across Remus' lips as a tidal wave engulfed a good five metres of the shore. Thank Merlin Peter had insisted on flying out of view of the Slytherins sitting over by the quidditch pitch.

Where was Peter, then? And where, for that matter, had Sirius got to?

As the swells rising across the lake slowly became smaller, Remus became increasingly desperate for a sight of the foolhardy self-proclaimed 'sky-diving champion' who was still submerged. Without dropping the copy of the Daily Prophet clutched tightly in his hand, he began to dash towards the water's edge, swerving past Peter, who had just landed roughly on the shore.

"What happened?" Peter cried, bewildered, staring as the werewolf ran by, but Remus didn't spare the time to respond. All he could think of was Sirius – alongside the niggling perennial fears of deep water and Grindylows. But he'd swim to the centre of the lake if Sirius was drowning, he assured himself, of course – although, he thought, as he tore his robes over his head and almost hung himself on his tie, the water did look awfully cold, but then –

"Ow!" he cried out, stunned silly for a moment, before realising that his protestation had been synchronised with someone else's – a disgruntled-looking Sirius whose sweeping fringe had become a draggle of seaweed-worthy mess against his forehead.

He stared into Sirius' eyes, which seemed as wide as his own, absently feeling the cold water whirl around his ankles and into his shoes. He noticed that they were both clutching their heads and came to the realisation that he must have slammed head-first into Sirius, who had just swum to the shore.

"Oh," he said, too cold to be sheepish. "Are – are you alright?"

"I don't know," Sirius said, dead-pan beneath his bedraggled hair. "I almost drowned. Then I hit my head on a werewolf when climbing out of the freezing water. But yeah, I'm fine, how are you?"

"I'm okay," Remus replied, beginning to unravel his tie from around his neck, "I'm kind of busy. You see, I'm looking for my stupid friend. He just jumped from a broomstick twenty feet above the lake. Have you seen him? He's wearing an idiotic expression."

Sure enough, Sirius had collapsed into shivering laughter, which prompted Remus to do the same, until a wet hand reached forward and unceremoniously pushed him backwards into the water.

"What was that for?" Remus yelped, scrambling out of the shallow water that bit at his skin through his clothing.

"I didn't jump," Sirius said loftily, "someone charmed my broom, I swear. It bucked me off, didn't you see?"

"All I saw was a swandive, Padfoot," said Remus as he ducked away from Sirius' reaching hands, causing the taller boy to trip forward and splash back into the water.

"Oi!"

Remus chuckled, stepping out of the way before Sirius could grab his ankles and pull him down. As he glanced fleetingly back towards the shore, he saw that James and Peter were laughing at them, and behind them –

"It was Snivellus," Sirius said quietly, standing up now, attempting to wring out his sodden robes with unnecessary force. "He jinxed my broom."

Remus frowned towards the shore, unable to contradict Sirius' accusation. Fifty metres away, the dark, hunched figure of Severus Snape glared back out to the water, meeting Remus' eyes with piercing hatred. Before Remus could do more than fling out a hand in useless anticipation, he saw Snape throw back his wand, and a jet of yellow light shot towards the lake a moment later.

Remus felt the instant of heat and knew that the hex had reached its target, but he couldn't tell what Snape had done. He looked to Sirius, desperately, and saw that the sodden boy had started quivering in rage.

"What's he done?" Sirius hissed, his voice seething with anger, and grabbed Remus roughly towards him.

Remus opened his mouth to say that he didn't know, and to let it go, Snape wasn't worth it, but suddenly he could feel the burning on his skin, and his eyes dropped down to his chest. He didn't want to look. He really didn't want to look. But before Remus could make up his mind, Sirius had reached forward and torn half the buttons of his shirt off.

They both gasped. There, emblazoned across the centre of Remus' chest, was a new line of scars, oozing blood.

_Dirty Secret_.

Slowly, Remus raised his eyes, and was shocked by the intensity of feeling that he found in Sirius' face.

"Come on," Sirius said shortly, grabbing Remus by the arm and towing him out of the water towards the other two, who hadn't noticed that anything was wrong.

As he stumbled through the water, trying not to dwell on the words carved across his chest, Remus felt cold with dread. All he wanted was to find his wand and heal himself with what limited skills he possessed, so that nobody would ever have to read the truth again.

* * *

Remus grappled his way to consciousness fitfully. His eyelids scraped against a sweaty pillow, cracking open despite the piercing light. A low groan rose from deep within his chest, which burned in painful patches, like he'd been rolled forcibly through a field of nettles.

This pain was familiar. Worse, this pain was unfamiliar. Or at least it had been for the past three months.

As long as he could cling to the stuffy darkness of sleep, Remus refused to think about the familiarity. He refused to wonder why his clammy skin was sticking to sheets scented with the sterilising potions of the Hospital Wing, rather than the mouldy old bed in the Shrieking Shack. He didn't want to ask himself why his friends weren't curled up beside him, as had become habit.

Unfortunately, as his pulse refused to cooperate, Remus suddenly found himself helpless to his body's desperate impulses, and he jerked up from his reclined position, legs dragging over the side of the bed's iron frame. In a snatch of light and movement, Remus glanced at his pale skin and all became too clear.

No. Please, no.

Slowly, heart slamming against his chest, Remus steered his eyes back to his leg, and forced himself to understand the significance of the image.

There, beside the weeping gouges of tearing claws, lay five narrow abrasions etched deeply into his skin. The lines were spread almost evenly apart, like five fingers on a human hand.

A human hand. Human nails had scratched into Remus' calf. The scratches were fresh. _Someone had tried to defend themself against him last night_.

As Remus began to shudder violently, a horrific echo of his transformation the night before, he became aware of the person waiting on the other side of the bed, a person who had recently climbed to their feet.

He didn't turn around. His vision began to blur as he stood there, body throbbing in a paroxysm of shock and muted pain.

"Lie down," a calm voice instructed gently from a place that seemed far removed from Remus' immediate anguish. "Nobody has been hurt, Remus."

Fairly thrumming with anguish, Remus spun on his heel to face Dumbledore, whose face seemed distorted through a veil of streaming tears. He could hear himself panting in the sudden stillness of the room. He couldn't contain a small moan that squeezed through his tight chest. He felt like a cornered wolf, battered from a fight, torn and wounded, pathetic and utterly defenceless.

He watched dumbly, paralysed into immobility as the headmaster stepped around the bed with his hands outstretched, compassion bright behind moon-shaped lenses. An involuntary jolt shot through his entire body when Dumbledore's firm grasp came upon his shoulders, but he allowed himself to be steered back into bed.

Finally, collapsed against the rumpled bedspread, as his muscles began to loosen and the quaking eased away, Remus ran his tongue over cracked lips and tried to speak.

"Wh-" he cleared his throat painfully, "who was it?" he asked, his voice fading into a scratchy whisper.

Dumbledore's face, which had remained fittingly grave ever since Remus had noticed his presence, seemed to darken further for an instant.

"Mr Severus Snape found his way to the Shrieking Shack last night, placing himself in a danger that we can both understand." He paused as Remus started violently, gripping his arms in white-knuckled hands. "Fortunately, your good friend James was able to pull him out of danger – quite heroically, it must be noted. Unlike Mr Snape, I believe that Mr Potter was aware of the peril that awaited him at the end of the tunnel."

Dumbledore peered over his spectacles at Remus, who could make no response. He had barely understood anything past the fact that Snape had found him. There was an urgent question hammering desperately against his clenched teeth. He knew instinctively that he didn't want to know the answer, but he had to ask.

"How?" he mumbled, lowering his eyes to the five crimson lines on his leg. An immense reluctance seemed to precede Dumbledore's slow response.

"I believe that a certain Mr Black believed that it would be – er – humorous to inform Severus of the correct method of accessing the Shrieking Shack."

All the blood drained from Remus' face as soon as he heard the name.

"Sirius," he whispered, his voice breaking, and he buried his face in his pillows once more, as if trying to suffocate the betrayal from reality.


	14. The Moon May Draw the Sea

**A/N: Title by Alfred Lord Tennyson.**

**'Twas Tennyson who stole my heart**

**And filled it with enlightened verse;**

**Of Camelot, and Lady's curse,**

**Of life and lovers rent apart.**

**I demand that you go to a library, grab an anthology of his poetry, flip it open to any page, and appreciate. **

* * *

Remus dragged one shaky limb towards the open leg of his trousers, and paused, feeling ill.

_Don't look at the skin, don't look at the marks, don't think, don't think about the fingers_-

He shut his eyes and waited for the bout of dizziness to fade. He froze his mind into blankness as he sat there uncomfortably, bare skin prickling at the contact with the cold iron bed frame. His mind was blank. Blank. Except suddenly, from the uncooperative depths of his brain, an image of a most unwelcome nature flashed into the forefront of his mind: Sirius. Sirius, the first time.

Sirius, offering to help Remus remove his clothing before the full moon. Unafraid for his own sake, but almost timid nonetheless. There hadn't been enough time to save the trousers. They had been torn apart that night, and converted into bandanas for a subsequent ninja prank. Ripped to flimsy scraps they were, strewn about the floor to be found the morning after, torn from seam to seam, all threads and shreds, slashed apart –

– _by claws, tearing down through thin material, like five nails had dragged down bare skin_.

Remus clutched his head, moaning quietly, unable to keep his mind from returning to the imprints on his calf. Severus Snape, or maybe, worse, maybe James, had come that close, and in human form.

And all because of Sirius.

It was at this point, at this point in the whirling maelstrom of Remus' thoughts, that the moaning stopped, and the struggle to breathe began. Sirius. Removing his shirt. Holding him. Pushing him into the water (_was that yesterday?_) and laughing at him, and ripping his shirt off again, and glaring at the mark on his chest, and shuddering with anger as he looked back to the shore. To Snape.

With his eyes squeezed so tightly that bulbs of light began to flash behind the lids, Remus clutched at his chest. The trousers fell to the floor in a crumpled mess, Madam Pomphrey wouldn't like that, she wouldn't come in, but he couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. His fingers moved to grip his buttons, his stiff collar, the square pocket, and he inhaled sharply as he slid sideways, falling back onto the mattress, curling inwards, bare legs pressed to his shirt.

Sirius set this up. A joke, Dumbledore had said, almost casually. It was a joke to Sirius. A joke, Snivellus dealt with.

_Dirty secret_.

No more dirty secret. Dumbledore had assured Remus repeatedly that Snape would not tell any of his fellow students. Remus couldn't truly doubt the headmaster's word. But that didn't really prove much consolation in the end.

Did it matter if Snape's mouth was taped shut by Dumbledore? How was that going to stop word spreading? His dirty secret was out now, without a doubt. Ever since his three friends had discovered the truth, Sirius had been so casual, so blasé about the secrecy aspect, throwing nicknames around, making jokes in class…

_A joke. It was all a joke._

And Remus had trusted him implicitly. He had trusted them all, despite years of uncertainty and dread, fear that they would hate him once they knew his dirty secret. They were, quite simply, the best part of his life. They had spent three years illicitly training to become Animagi for him. Even Peter, who struggled to transfigure a tortoise into a turtle, let alone a teapot. Remus would never finish being grateful for their efforts.

And James, what James had done, such typical stupid heroics that Lily could never, of course, be privy too – but Remus couldn't think of James, not even with the infinite gratitude that he deserved, because that thought led back to the catalyst, the elegant fringe, the dark eyes, the betrayal.

Remus' eyes fluttered open, even as he continued to lie there, gasping. He was shocked at the strength of the venomous rage that shook his body, coiling hotly through muscle and tissue and in his aching head.

The betrayal. Did those blood promises back in First Year mean nothing? Did Peter almost faint for nothing? It was almost funny, that memory, Peter standing there, gasping, hand smeared with blood, and reaching forward, serious despite Sirius' goading laughter, and completing the blood promise circle.

As his eyes slowly focussed, feeling strained, Remus dully realised that the light had changed. The room was darker than before. He shuddered, and found that he was cold.

It was so hard to slip out of his tight grasp of himself, so hard to slide his legs from his chest, and drag himself slowly upwards until he was sitting on the side of the bed once more. He reached down for his trousers, duly noting the new creases, and shoved his legs into the pants before he could begin to think again. His fingers trembling slightly, he buttoned the fly and hoisted himself to his feet, stepping into his shoes, enveloped in a stupor.

He was done, dressed, and he wanted to cry, but he found that it was too late; his face felt wet and coarse with tears. He didn't want to leave the Hospital Wing. How could Dumbledore ask him to stay in the Fifth Year Dormitory? Why wouldn't Dumbledore let him leave the school, expel himself for a crime that should, by right, have earned him an expulsion? He couldn't leave. He couldn't.

He had to.

While he stood behind the curtain surrounding his bed, vacillating, blood pumping painfully as dread tugged at his body, Madam Pomphrey came to check on him. Her face, while extraordinarily sympathetic, was stern. He could feel the motherly surge of her pity and worry at his white face and shaking hands even as she pushed him towards the exit. He stumbled, and righted himself on the door handle, pushing through.

And came face to face with a white and shaking Sirius Black.

Remus opened his mouth, that same throbbing anger flowing back through his veins in an instant, but nothing came out. He clung to the doorknob behind him like a lifeline. His legs felt like they were about to give out, and he hated himself for his weakness. For once, he wanted to shout. Physically, he was closer to vomiting.

His eyes were drawn to his betrayer's face against his will, and stuck there, feeding relentlessly on the desperation, the panic, the guilt, the fear, the–

Remus tore his gaze away. He felt dizzy again, and wanted to sink to the floor, and directly through the stone. He couldn't look at Sirius.

_It was all a joke_.

His head rocked listlessly on his shoulders as Sirius grabbed at his arms, shaking fingers crawling across his forearms, his hands, his stomach and chest, and Remus wondered if he was being prompted into some form of forgiving embrace, and shrugged the hands away.

"Remus," Sirius croaked, his hoarse voice breaking through the agonizing silence. "Remus, I…"

His voice trailed away. From his peripheral vision, Remus saw Sirius turn away, and swipe his arm across his face, and then stand there, shaking, turned from him, facing the wall.

"A joke…"

Remus started, not realising that he had said the words before they were clothed in the thick tapestries. He hung his head lower as he saw Sirius jerk back towards him, visibly stunned, his shoulders becoming still in an instant. Remus watched the red-rimmed, swollen eyes widen, saw the blotchy skin turn a shade greyer, and was unaffected.

"Remus, I, no. No, not a joke, why would you, but I am so-"

Sirius stopped as Remus began to shake his head, back and forth. In a single motion, Sirius had come forward, standing directly before Remus, quivering now in what could have been anger. Like some comical repeat performance of Remus' twisted thoughts back in the Hospital Wing, Sirius was unbuttoning his shirt, fingers slick with tears, prodding his chest in their haste, their urgency.

And then, with one tremulous finger pointed forward, to the centre of Remus' chest, Sirius said, "There," and stood back on his heels. His face was set in a grey mask of determination and suppressed antagonism.

Remus followed the trail of the finger to his chest, and felt his stomach roil.

_Dirty secret_.

Emblazoned across the tattered parchment of Remus' chest, the two words that had been burnt into his skin the day before, standing in the lake.

_Dirty secret_.

"Secret's out," he muttered to himself, eyes transfixed on the words tattooed into his chest. He began to tremble, feeling exposed, feeling unutterably exposed and vulnerable and he wanted to hide away immediately, far away from Sirius' pointing finger. He grabbed the edges of his shirt and flung his arms about himself, covering what he could, thrusting his head down to his chest. He closed his eyes.

"Out?" Sirius said, his voice straining against some unknown emotion. "What- why are you – are you hiding? From me?"

Remus didn't answer, twisting sideways, back and forth on his heels, wishing he could somehow be dead, right now.

"I-" Sirius whispered, and his voice broke on his next words. "I am so sorry. Look, never – never think it was a – joke, Merlin, I, just, oh, Remus."

Suddenly, warm arms were closing around his body, and Remus flinched in shock, unable to step backwards, the doorknob pressed into the small of his back. He didn't know who was trembling, or whose tears were dampening the front of his shirt, or whose hair was falling into his eyes. His arms were caught tightly in between Sirius' chest and his own, and his shoulders ached with the pressure of Sirius' grasp.

A thread of composure was slowly unravelling in him, starkly free from the tight enclosure of Sirius' arms, loosening with every sob that shook through Sirius' chest, and every gasp that tore Remus' throat. Biting his lip until a taste of iron filled his mouth, Remus pressed his face into the space between Sirius' neck and shoulder, and used the blinding pressure to breathe between muffled moans. He felt Sirius' nails hook more desperately into his shoulder blades, and they leaned against each other, even as bitterness pounded through Remus, and the knowledge of betrayal gleamed through his eyelids like the pitiless face of the full moon.

He became aware that Sirius was muttering, murmuring thickly between wrenching sobs, repeating a word over and over and over again, a word which could have anything from "Remus" to "sorry".

Without the solidity of the door behind him, Remus felt that he would have fallen straight down, sliding through layers of agony to the floor, beneath the weight, the immense pressure, the weight of the betrayal, the reality, and Sirius' body. He felt suffocated, pressed this close to Sirius, his scent engulfing his senses, his damp cheek scratching against a hint of stubble, his lips mashed into salty, trembling skin. They were surely drowning in their tears, and breathing only the other's misery, and guilt, driftwood, crashing through a tumultuous ocean of pain and grief.

"I'm sorry," Sirius whispered, coherent at last, and his grasp loosened slightly about Remus' shoulders.

Remus stiffened, afraid he would be dashed apart, that the thread would unravel entirely in the absence of the enveloping arms. He held his breath and blinked hard until he could make out the shades of Sirius' face, centimetres in front of his own. He stared directly into Sirius' grey eyes, eyes marred by tears, frame of lashes fairly dripping with them.

One sharp gasp was all that could be drawn before other lips suddenly crashed to his own, pulling violently, warm and wet and breaking only for breath, and stopping only when Remus' mouth fell slack.

Sirius immediately leapt back, eyes comically wide, trembling hands held before him in some gesture of apology, or embarrassment, or disbelief. Remus, who had somehow broken from his numbed shell, whose body now thrummed with an intensification of pain, and betrayal, and _feeling_, stared back. Crimson flooded into Sirius' pale cheeks, and he looked, of all things, hurt, or disappointed, or probably mortified, and he backed away further.

"I – I thought you wanted – I don't, please, I'm – I'm sorry. I'm sorry. For everything. I'll leave now. Hate me forever. Please. I will."

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A/N: God, I loved writing this chapter. I must be sadistic. But I loved the tormented fragments of thought, and the contrast between the body's lethargy and the mental torrent.

**And tragic romance is the best kind, right? Angst is the way to go? I shouldn't wait for the veil, Sirius should just bow out next chapter, am I right?**

**Tell me why I'm wrong. Reassure me that this chapter was legible, or even vaguely coherent. :)**

**Until my next delivery of PUPPYANGST, I leave you with the lingering thought that, hey, at least there's some romantic progression… ;)**

**xx Froody **


	15. Losing Control

If five blankets and a silencing spell couldn't keep Remus shielded from the world, he didn't know what would. His hunched shoulders were engulfed in a scratchy, padded enclosure, yet shivers rippled ceaselessly through his body. He felt clammy and pale and his eyes hurt. Sniffing every so often, he stared blindly forward into the thick folds of his curtains. He promised himself he would eat when he could stomach the thought of crawling out of his bed.

His index finger dragged back and forth along his lower lip. He could almost feel another's lips, pulling, pressing, gone. Gone.

He couldn't go outside the curtains. Beyond the velvet veil lay a world of fear and pain and betrayal. He was missing classes, he knew, a fact worrying in itself – but he didn't care. There was a dull thudding ache in his chest, that was true, but he didn't think it was guilt.

James had been worried, though. James had pulled aside the curtains only that morning, tie askew, and over his shoulder, Remus had seen Sirius slink out the door without a glance behind him. James had started to say something, Remus couldn't remember. He hadn't listened to a word after seeing Sirius leave. There had been a pressure behind his eyes, red and bright and blinding, and James had left after that.

Remus didn't care. He wished they would all just stay away and leave him alone. He couldn't face his classes, he couldn't face the awful possibility of seeing Snape, or of seeing the judgment in Snape's eyes. He couldn't face-

His finger stilled, pressed lightly to his mouth, as he heard the dormitory door creak open. His eyes widened in the dark, and the pain in his chest intensified.

Shoes padded softly over floorboards. They seemed to meander, pausing now and then, maybe hesitant, maybe cautious- maybe curious?

"Remus," a familiar voice breathed uncertainly into the silence. "Are you in there?"

It was Lily. Of course it was Lily. Of course.

Remus released a breath that he hadn't been aware of holding, and it caught in his throat a little. Violently, he dashed at his wet cheeks with the corner of a blanket before Lily could take a peek inside.

Light spilled across his sheets as, with a soft scraping of metal, the curtain pulled across the rod. Reluctantly, Remus raised his puffy eyes and blinked in the sudden brightness, gradually piecing together a complete image of Lily, whose face contained too much pity to bear.

He looked back down to his blankets, wrenching them more fiercely about himself.

The silencing spell was broken. Deep down, Remus knew that no amount of blankets could prevent exposure now.

"I- I brought a plate," Lily said, giggling nervously as she slid a porcelain dish onto the bedside table. "I've never come up here before – obviously – and I feel like this is a housewarming present or something."

Remus was silent. Lily's awkward efforts to lighten the situation seemed utterly foreign to his current numbing misery, and he couldn't fathom a suitable way to react.

Bodily reactions tend to speak at a higher volume than methodical responses, anyway.

His stomach growled loudly at the wafting scent of shepherd's pie. Lily laughed, and seemed to relax slightly. She grabbed the plate and lowered it temptingly under Remus' nose.

"It's not poisoned, I swear. And James says you haven't left the room all day." Lily paused. When she next spoke, her tone was far from light and cheery. "He said that he couldn't talk to you himself. He basically begged me to come up here, not that he would have needed to, the berk. He- he was sporting a rather impressive black eye."

Remus gazed down at his fist, and pressed it into his chest absently. The knuckles felt tender. He thought of James, and the haze of the morning cleared somewhat, and he was suddenly brimming with undiluted guilt. He groaned, shoving his face into his hands. The mattress shifted slightly, as if Lily had been startled by the sudden movement.

"I don't blame you at all, don't worry about that," she said hurriedly, consolingly, placing a hand gingerly at the centre of Remus' back, stretching across with the other to place the pie on the table. "I'm sure that he deserved it for whatever he's done, him and the other two."

"No," Remus moaned into his palms, "you've got it all wrong. James – he should have taken a swing at me, you've no idea."

The palm at his back halted its tender smoothing motion, and Lily moved forwards, her knee jabbing into his blanket cocoon.

"What happened, then?" she said, sounding bewildered. "Do you feel guilty, is that it? For what?"

"I can't. I can't tell you. Don't blame James. Please. He deserves so much better. He – he saved – everything."

"Last night was a full moon."

This was a statement, and it seemed horribly bleak to Remus.

"Yes," he whispered.

"You transformed, and something went wrong."

"Yes."

"Someone was there."

"Yes."

A pause. "Was it – James?"

Remus was momentarily startled by the strain that was suddenly tight in Lily's voice. It had almost wavered, almost, on that last word…

"He was there. But Snape – Snape was there – first."

There. He had said it. He couldn't believe he had said it. His fists loosened slightly around fat tufts of blanket.

"Oh, God," Lily said, and her voice finally cracked. From his peripheral vision, Remus saw a pale hand flit up and swipe across a freckled cheek. He looked up properly, heart heavy with guilt, brow lifted with surprise.

"You're crying," he stated dully. Then, with a flicker of hope, "You didn't already know?"

"What? No. No, Snape hasn't said anything. Nobody else knows you're a werewolf." As that dreaded word passed through her lips, Lily seemed to regain control and a sense of her purpose. "Oh, Remus, is that why you're holed up in here?"

Remus dropped his head down into his blanketed lap and fought the pulling tide of memory.

"No. That's – that's not why."

And it wasn't. Not really.

"Then – why?"

"Sirius." The name spilled in a whisper through his shaking lips as he huddled in on himself. He felt a warm hand creep onto his knee, and then another on the small of his back, and then he was being pulled over into Lily's arms, and she was cradling him to her chest before he even noticed the hot tears streaking down his cheeks.

He breathed deeply, shakily, his head nestled in the comforting dark. Lily's chest rose and fell evenly, and he thought of her earlier assumptions, and he thought of James. Lily thought James was to blame. He hadn't thanked James. He had punched James in the face. He felt sudden energy course through his body, and heat, and guilt, and anguish, and he remembered with piercing clarity the absolute bliss of friendship, and he needed to remove the blankets. He pulled his head away from Lily, and he could hear her self-restraint as loudly as he could hear the questions that she wanted desperately to ask.

"I've got to go out there," he said breathlessly, heaving himself awkwardly to the side of the bed, his feet dangling to the floor, and the sudden cold.

"Yes, but, Remus! You're still in your pyjamas!" Lily looked shocked, her hands still clinging to the air where Remus had been until moments ago.

"I don't care," he muttered, his mind hanging on those three words. He wouldn't do this. He wouldn't let this ruin things. He wouldn't let Sirius ruin things. He owed this to James.

"James," he said, his voice sounding oddly loud to his own ears. He looked at Lily, and saw that she was watching him intently, a slight frown upon her face. "He saved Snape. From me. Dumbledore said he almost died."

Did he overdo it? Remus didn't think he had. He didn't think it was possible to repay James for his actions, but he could start here.

He watched Lily's face as amazement, fear and disbelief widened her eyes in succession.

"He what?" she gasped.

"Saved me." He was walking now, across the room to the door, kicking scraps of parchment along the way, grabbing for his wand as he passed the dresser at the end of the room. He wondered absently if it was food deprivation directing his actions, or some form of insanity that had descended upon him during the misery and the blankets. Strangely, this thought was comforting.

"Sirius told Snape," he continued, pausing at the door and turning back to Lily, whose face drained of colour at the words. "He wanted me to kill him. Or something. I can't talk to him anymore."

"Where are you going?" Lily whispered, seeming to find her voice again. "What are you going to do?"

"I have to thank James for saving my life, remember?" Remus said almost fiercely, gripping the doorknob. "As long as one friend wants me around, I shouldn't hide in blankets, should I?"

He ripped the door open and froze. From the bed, Lily froze too. Loud voices carried through the open doorway from the common room below. This discussion was far from discreet.

"You sodding bastard!"

"I know, okay? Do you think I'm gloating or something?"

"Why couldn't you just leave him alone?"

As James' voice thundered up from below, Remus was startled to see Lily dart around him onto the staircase, and begin to quickly descend. He breathed once, the icy grasp of emotion having returned at the sound of _his_ voice, and forced himself to follow her. He came to a halt immediately behind her at the foot of the stairs, peering over her hair to see that they were not the only spectators for this argument.

James and Sirius stood ten feet apart at one end of the room, hands clenched, cheeks flushed with colour, each seething. When Sirius made no immediate response, James clenched his jaw and threw a hand into the air.

"Moony's up there alone, Black, he's practically comatose with misery, and it's all because of your stupid decision to get Snivellus-"

"I know," Sirius moaned, and Remus' chest constricted. "I know, I know, he hates me, I know, but don't you see why I had to –"

"No! Nothing could ever justify-"

James didn't seem able to finish his sentence. His shoulders were heaving with rage. His black eye looked terrifying. Turning, he swung one arm into the air, and smashed his fist through the plaster.

The staring common room became silent.

"Ow, buggering ow, ow!" James said through gritted teeth, bouncing from foot to foot as he grasped at his knuckles.

But the greater shock came when Sirius started to cry, beginning to sob helplessly, shaking from the core of his body. It was worse, Remus thought, it was so much worse than yesterday, because yesterday Sirius was crying with him, and today they had both sunk through the floor, down to the floor, miserable and alone.

He felt sick.

The faint gasp that flew from Lily's lips – in surprise, in sympathy, Remus didn't know – seemed to startle James from his disgust, and he glanced up to the foot of the stairs, still cradling his fist with his other hand. His eyes bulged at the sight of the pair, and he looked so guilty, so helplessly, hopelessly guilty, that Remus might have smiled in another situation.

Double prefect trouble. Hole in the wall. Oh dear.

The next second, all thoughts of smiling disappeared. Sirius, who had crumbled to the floor in front of the entire house without shame or control, followed James' gaze, and in a moment, his eyes had locked with Remus'.

They stared at each other, Sirius still shaking silently. Remus felt numb. He couldn't summon the will or the energy to tear his eyes away.

And Sirius was mouthing something, incomprehensible, through quivering lips.

Remus' hand flew to his own lips automatically, and he remembered the shape of Sirius' mouth. Sirius had said something afterwards.

_"I thought you wanted-"_

Had it all been part of an apology? A conciliatory gesture? Did Sirius not want to – The thought stuck. It was painful, like a bone lodged in his throat. Had Sirius only kissed him because he thought Remus wanted him to?

_Forget about the kiss_, his brain screamed, _remember Snape, the betrayal that counts._

But looking down at Sirius' blotchy face, his shuddering chest and pleading eyes, Remus could not feel the same ache of betrayal that he had felt only yesterday. There was a sharper pain that now sliced incisor-like through his ribcage and into his heart, and, although his face remained dry, his finger stayed at his lips, shaking.

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A/N: Ouch. This was hard. Please review, and make me feel better about this. I give you licence to rant at the fluffless depravity of it all.

**Still… boys + tears = adorable. **

**And I loved James' loss of control. Even Lily's got to love that. Surely.**

**REVIEW! **

**xx Froody **


	16. Breach of Contract

No further tears had been publically shed since the common room incident. Remus was wholeheartedly grateful for this. After all, he had needed to devote the whole of his heart to something, some slice of optimism in this whole disgusting mess, or he felt that it might just implode with suppressed emotion.

Remus had refused to hear Sirius' useless explanations. He had torn three feet of apology into narrow, jagged strips of parchment, and pretended that the mindless destruction was somehow therapeutic, a release of his pent-up frustration.

A silent contract had been drawn up by James, who had both lost and won a battle of loyalty with himself by remaining best friends with Sirius despite the betrayal. Remus didn't blame James for eventually forgiving Sirius. It was enormously difficult to bear a grudge against those haughty, laughing grey eyes for any length of time – unless of course they had forcibly dismembered your trust.

James' contract required the Marauders to return to their previous roles and forget the whole bloody Snape incident, because, after all, what kind of twat takes Sirius seriously anyway? Remus signed the contract (feeling rather ridiculous as he did so, taking into account the fact that the agreement was written up on the back of a scrappy old detention slip filched from the caretaker). As he scrawled a hasty signature at James' bequest, he noted the presence of Sirius' elegant calligraphy at the very top of the page.

The wide lettering seemed eager in its prominence, an echo of Sirius himself. However, although Remus signed the contract and bound himself to a ridiculous set of terms, he only committed himself to an empty act, and informed James of this decision. James had nodded sadly, but his brown eyes were understanding, resonating with compassion for the betrayal that hadn't been forgotten, merely forcibly ignored.

And so the Marauders were back on track, a solid unit of four unholy terrors (or marvellous pranksters, depending on the audience) who swept about the school led by a pair of black-haired boys. Smiles were a constant fixture, of course – the cheekier the better – but only three were ever genuine at the one time.

And then, as spring danced across the lake's wide surface, and the Giant Squid began to sun its tentacles each afternoon, the OWLs arrived, and there was no longer a need to pretend to smile. Not one of the four boys felt the urge to grin in the face of the dreaded Fifth Year exams. Pranking became impromptu, a last resort to achieving some form of peace (or quietly terrified quivering) in the Gryffindor common room.

As dawn broke on the day of the Defence Against the Dark Arts written examination, Remus had still not found himself able to forgive Sirius.

It had been a month. Or nearly.

Almost four weeks of agonising tension whenever in the presence of Sirius. Neither had mentioned the kiss. Of course, Remus knew that there had been times when Sirius was on the edge of breaking down, perhaps, maybe crawling across the floor to beg his forgiveness, but he had always read the signs and escaped before further irreparable damage could be done to whatever scraps of friendship remained between them.

Remus leapt out of bed, high on an adrenaline rush. His hands shook slightly in the shower as he ran though the signs of five signs of werewolf identification in his head – yes, more than slightly ridiculous, he knew, but still – and almost spilled the bottle of shampoo when he (ridiculously) forgot the fourth indication.

He crept past the other three beds in the dormitory, wary of waking the snoring boys. The irritating confidence of James and Sirius was just as effective as Peter's miniature panic attacks at destroying whatever trickle of calmness Remus managed to scrabble together. Remus preferred to spend the mornings of a life-threateningly important examination alone on the lawn beside the lake, immersed in numbing meditation.

Numbing meditation was unfailingly difficult to achieve. All too often, as Remus sprawled across the shore with his arm shielding his eyes from early morning sun, his thoughts would turn to the awful internal mess wrought by misery and betrayal and false friendship that he could conceal from the others, but never from himself.

He thought of Sirius, and felt his insides writhe. He pressed his fingers painfully against his eyes. The pressure helped him to keep a grip on himself. It would not do to fall apart visibly on the morning of an important examination. Falling apart was reserved for practical examinations, when the examiners were used to witnessing hysterics and tearfloods and puffy eyes.

Remus wasn't an idiot (despite the recent disaster of his practical Potions examination). Against all the evidence and all his actions, he was perfectly aware that Sirius had been suffering greatly ever since the incident. His eyes had watched Sirius closely over the past month. He had seen those grey eyes flicker over to his at mealtimes, sometimes hopeful, sometimes flooded with a feeling that Remus decided to wholly ignore.

Sirius hadn't stopped helping James target Snape. If anything, his actions became increasingly spiteful. Remus had decided weeks ago that Sirius was a terrible influence on James, who responded to his best friend's encouragement with hearty vigour, infuriating professors and his professed love, a wrathful Lily Evans, with his every prank.

The fact that Snape had revealed nothing to the school of Remus' _dirty_ secret meant nothing to the lycanthrope. The bottom line was clearly legible – he _still could_. Remus had no doubt that James and Sirius could eventually drive Snape over the edge with their bullying, provoking him to spill the beans and destroy Remus' life. He hadn't mentioned this to the other Marauders. It wasn't like his opinion was ever worth that much. Sirius had made that fact quite obvious, one way or another.

The worst part of the whole betrayal thing, Remus decided, was that he could only lie to others, never himself. Oh, he could play along with James' friendship contract, he could sit under a tree with his nose stuck in revision while the others joked and laughed, but he couldn't stop the little voices remarking at the every gesture and word from a certain grey-eyed teenager.

He hadn't forgotten the kiss; far from it. That flustered, desperate, miserable moment clung at the forefront of Remus' thoughts, reappearing at odd intervals and destroying whatever peace of mind he could muster. He no longer knew what to think about the moment. Whenever he couldn't sleep at night, tossing under his restrictive blankets and heavy thoughts, his treacherous mind would summon an image of Sirius at that moment, a physical image constructed of pulling, tearing lips, driven by pain, a shared misery, a one-sided betrayal.

One picture always lingered in Remus' mind, that of Sirius afterwards, pulling back. That Sirius was red-cheeked, with red-rimmed eyes, and an odd look of frustrated despair stretched across his face.

As he felt the sun beat more strongly against his bare forearms, Remus knew it was time to grab a piece of toast before the dreaded exam. He was glad. He was always glad to escape these thoughts and lose himself in the bustle of a busy student's life. With one last glance across the glistening lake, pausing for a moment on the Giant Squid's exposed tentacles, he turned and headed back towards the castle.

* * *

"You make me SICK!"

Well, Remus was surprised. The exam hadn't tested at least fifty percent of what he'd crammed into his head in the last three days, which was both vaguely disappointing, and vaguely relieving. What didn't surprise Remus, however, was the reception that had greeted James' latest misguided attempt at reaching out to his lady-love.

He heard James shouting after Lily, but let his eyes linger on his Transfiguration test book. There was still another exam to go before glorious freedom (to dwell on unwelcome thoughts) arrived. He had every excuse in the world to ignore James, and Snape, who was probably hanging upside down by now, and Sirius, who had been goading James on.

He was grateful when the small crowd finally dispersed, and Snape had stumbled away, mouth still firmly shut on the topic of most importance, pulling his greying pants beneath his black robes. Remus really couldn't understand the motivation behind his friends' bullying. It made him nauseous behind the shield of his book. After all, he knew what it was like to be ostracised by a crowd.

"Did you see any of that, or what?" Sirius asked suddenly, and Remus knew that the question was addressed to him. He glanced up from his book, face set into the same mask it had become used to, and prepared a throw-away comment like those he had used all day. Sirius had talked to him a lot that day. It was absurdly different from the rest of the past week, during which Sirius had been notably distant, barely fulfilling the requirements of James' contract.

The past month had seen a talkative Sirius, an overly friendly Sirius, an angry Sirius, a resentful Sirius, a desperately sorry Sirius, a weirdly remote Sirius who barely even responded to James, and the brash, Snape-bashing Sirius who was possibly the worst of all options.

Remus set down the book, and prepared himself for communicative Sirius.

"Yeah. It was pretty terrible, you know."

He was surprised at himself. That had sounded rather close to the truth. He felt vaguely discomforted.

He looked up. Sirius' shoulders had tensed visibly. His grey eyes were fixed steadily on Remus.

"You know he deserves it."

There was no question in Sirius' voice. This was a change. A self-assured Sirius had not made an appearance over the past month – not when it mattered. There had been no true conviction in his communication with Remus. Not until now.

It was bizarre how this statement worked at Remus' nerves, rubbing against all the raw edges of his suppressed emotions.

"You know he deserved it," Sirius said quietly, his voice becoming hoarse at the end of the sentence. He cleared his throat roughly. "You know he deserved it."

Remus stood up. He felt shaken. This wasn't part of the silent bargain that had emerged between him and Sirius in the nuances of James' contract. His book lay abandoned against the root of the tree, but he was backing away now, fingers trembling into fists, holding his anger in. This wasn't right. He shouldn't need to hold his anger in. Concealing emotion was meant to be easy. It had been easy.

He backed away.

"You have to forgive me, you know," Sirius said more loudly, his grey eyes locked with Remus'. "Friday's the full moon, didn't you know? You need me there. We both know it."

Sirius gave a bark of bitter laughter, settling himself back against the grass.

Remus wrapped his arms about himself, seething with anger. He knew it. He had always known it, throughout the whole, long month. He needed Sirius when he transformed, not just to stop him from tearing himself apart, but to–

To what? Prove himself?

Remus' fingers drifted shakily to his lips, and that familiar unbidden image floated into his mind. Red face, red-rimmed eyes, pulling, lips–

"Oh right," Sirius said with an unpleasant smile, "we're going to have to talk about that too, aren't we? Wouldn't want one of us getting the wrong idea."

Remus' hand dropped to his side.

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A/N: **So. It's been a hard week. Exams have been frantically scrawled. Long words have been used. ****Pretentious words. Et des mots assez simples en français aussi. ****But finally, I have dredged up this chapter, despite feeling guilt for my nano (which has merely 5148 words). **

**If you hate**

**To await**

**My next update,**

**Here's a clue,**

**Me to you,**

**Go forth, REVIEW. **

**(Please reward my painful attempts at poetry. Heh.)**

**xx Froody**


	17. Coward

Remus did not break down and run away. Far from it. Mind over matter, wand over werewolf, as his mother used to stoutly tell him.

When he had walked out of his Transfiguration exam in a small daze of relief and wrist pain, Remus did not run for the hills. He did not break down. Once a month was enough for experiencing an absence of mental faculties. This was his own little proverb.

It was difficult, though, much more so than the exam had been. Oddly, the constant sense of dread had cleared his mind somewhat, allowing him to absorb far too much of his Transfiguration revision. Unsettlingly, it seemed that educational benefits could indeed arise from an obsessive evasion of certain thoughts.

And now it was Friday. Terrible, horrible, disastrous, exam-free, festive Full Moon Friday. And Remus hadn't broken down and run away. Rationalising with himself, Remus decided that hiding away from the world was a much better option.

Before breakfast, he had told James and Peter that they shouldn't bother coming to the Shrieking Shack that night. He ignored their heated protests. He hadn't told Sirius anything. It was hard to tell who had been avoiding who more enthusiastically since the Defence exam and James' romantic disgrace. Personally, Remus was certain that he was making more of an effort. After all, he'd never heard of anyone sneaking away to hide in the cramped niche behind the portrait of Cecil the Sane, who, as it turned out, did not live up to his name. It had been true desperation that had directed his feet.

It wasn't like Remus could go and hide in any of the usual places. The library was far too obvious, the Shrieking Shack more still. He couldn't prop his book upright beneath his bed, and the prefects' bathroom was too busy at this time of year, as stressed prefects sought relief amidst the bubbles.

He wasn't too sure why Sirius seemed to be attempting to avoid him as well. He'd thought that their last conversation had pretty much exposed Sirius' inclination to drag things best left forgotten into the open. In fact, Sirius had been far too lucid in his intention to wield certain events as weapons of humiliation against Remus.

Evidently, one friendship-destroying betrayal was nowhere near enough for the heir to the Black fortune. But in the end, that wasn't such a big surprise – or it shouldn't have been. Remus knew he was at fault here, too.

Every second of every minute of every hour crammed awkwardly behind a chuckling Cecil (_the incessantly psychotic_, Remus would add in his head) was a second spent in total awareness of one fact: Remus Lupin was a coward.

This conclusion could not be denied. If Remus had even a speck of Sirius' capacity for bluntness, he would have taken a step forward down there by the lake after the Defence exam. He would have taken Sirius' lead, and spoken the truth. He could have been a man about the whole sodding situation for once, instead of the snivelling puppy that crawled out of the Shrieking Shack once a bloody month.

_"Wouldn't want one of us getting the wrong idea, Sirius? What exactly is the wrong idea? Do you remember crying, Sirius, begging me to forgive you for-" _(even Remus' cruel thought-voice wavered)_ "-for almost condemning me to death? You know what I remember? I remember that you were the one who grabbed me, you were the one with the red-rimmed eyes and the blotchy skin, you leaned forward, and you kissed me. So what's the wrong idea? That you like me, Sirius Black? That you're a-"_

No. He'd dropped his bloody hand from his bloody lip, like some pathetic Hufflepuff First Year girl. He'd turned away, unable to face the cruel smile that twisted across Sirius' face, because, after all, he had had the wrong idea. Obviously. And no matter how scary and weird and awkward that idea had been, the knowledge that it was wrong was infinitely worse.

Remus needed Sirius – no, he needed _Padfoot_ – during the full moon. Both of them knew that. Waking up in the Hospital Wing last month had been almost unbearable, though the physical pain had been admittedly overshadowed by the agony of betrayal. Mentally, emotionally, and physically, he needed Padfoot in the room of the Shrieking Shack. It was a sickening, brutal weakness, made all the worse by the fact that Remus had absolutely no control over what or who he wanted when he was a werewolf.

Weak coward.

And James and Peter couldn't come either, because Sirius would come with them, and even though Remus needed Sirius, Sirius could not come, because then Sirius would have won, and he'd know that Remus had had the wrong idea for sure, and it was obvious why Transfiguration revision had been so simple for the brain compared to this mess.

Was it possible that he was over-thinking this whole situation? Remus could almost hear Cecil's shocked dismissal of such a notion. As he eased himself painfully from the recess behind the portrait, wary of the hour, feeling the lunar pull within his very bones, he tried to shake himself up, find some strength for the lonely night ahead.

He paid too much attention to Madam Pomfrey's distracted chatter as she escorted him across the grounds, earning a suspicious glance. It was almost funny; Remus hadn't been aware that listening courteously to an authority figure provided grounds for suspicion. He caught himself imagining the smirk on Sirius' face at the thought, and decided that being suspiciously attentive to Madam Pomfrey was the better option.

He sat on the stained floorboards in his room at the end of the tunnel and traced his fingers through the dust. Two sets of five spread fingers. Only one set on his calf. He didn't know whose nails had raked across his werewolf skin. James had never told him.

He held his palms towards him and noted the grey smudges on his fingertips. Dirty. Dirty secret. Guilty. His fault. Sirius' fault too. But the dirt was on Remus' hands, wasn't it, and all he had done was to allow himself to be kissed for one desperate moment.

Remus slumped forward, nose pressed against the dusty floorboards, and he couldn't even move himself to sneeze. He should really get undressed. He should really unbutton his shirt. He should really kick his shoes and let Sirius help him to remove his so –

* * *

Remus woke, and the pain was not as bad as he had expected. This made him angry, and, with a squeak of protesting bedsprings, he twisted forwards, doggedly ignoring the nausea.

His ribs should by all rights be in torment right now. He shouldn't be able to breathe this easily. His nausea shouldn't be controllable. He was going to kill James and Peter with his bare, barely scratched-up hands, and he was going to enjoy it in this wretchedly pain-free state.

"You're awake," an infuriatingly familiar voice murmured from extremely nearby.

Remus snapped his head around to his left so fast that he received a ready reminder that he hadn't completely avoided the pain of transformation. No. Surely even Sirius wouldn't have stooped so low –

– but there was the evidence.

Somehow, through pure guile and outrageous audacity, Sirius had managed to acquire a bed for himself in the Hospital Wing – a bed that had been set up directly beside Remus' bed in his supposedly private post-full moon corner. Even the bloody curtains had been opened between their beds, undoubtedly a misguided gesture of kindness from Madam Pomfrey, who had always been too susceptible to Sirius' dark-eyed fabrications.

Remus felt like he had been force-fed three goblets of pepperup potion. His face was burning with anger, and he was finally beginning to find it difficult to breathe. Noticing that his hands were shaking, he stuffed his fists with blanket, squeezing and trembling and fixing his eyes on the twin lumps of his toes beneath the covers.

This was unbelievable. Of all the things Sirius had done. Of all the (increasingly cruel) pranks. And where was James, keeping Sirius' toes sharply at the line with a fistful of friendship contract and Peter's steady support?

For Merlin's sake, Sirius even looked pale!

"Why," Remus hissed through clenched teeth, glaring at his toe-lumps, "are you here?"

There was a pregnant pause, during which neither boy moved.

"I needed to go to the Hospital Wing."

"Yeah, right," Remus spat, resolve breaking, and he turned around to meet Sirius' eyes, only to find that the other boy was staring at the end of his bed. For some reason, this agitated Remus further, and he slid back down to his elbows, seething. "How'd you do it then? Tell Pomfrey that a flobberworm bit your integrity clean off?"

Another pause, broken only by Remus' uneven breathing. Then –

"Yeah. That's what I told her. Told James it'd work."

There was an odd tone in Sirius' voice which Remus heard even through his anger. There was no triumph, not one hint of bravado; not the slightest echo of the sardonic cruelty from the lakeside conversation. His voice was flat, emotionless.

Despite all his fervent conviction, Remus' eyes slid slowly back across to Sirius' bed, finding that the boy had rolled over, turning his face to the curtains. The thumping in Remus' chest seemed to flicker out as he saw that the standard striped Hospital Wing pyjama top had ridden up to expose the pale ridges of Sirius' spine, his back, bare and vulnerable in the light.

It was a nightmare. It had to be a nightmare.

Remus' pulse returned with a vengeance, pounding angrily in his forehead, causing his fingers to twitch slightly as they ripped up his pyjama leg to see the visible scars, to see the nail marks against his bruised skin.

No, no, no, his pulse beat out steadily, no, no, _no, no, it can't be, no, _no, no.

"I clawed your back," Remus said blankly, and his voice was odd and low. "You were Padfoot last night, and you came to the Shrieking Shack, and I hurt you. You had to get your wounds treated."

As if from a great distance, he heard the squeaking of a nearby bed as Sirius turned to finally face him. Grey eyes watched uncertainly as Remus' mouth worked silently, as if repeating his own words back to himself.

"You were right about Pomfrey," Sirius said quietly, but the smile on his lips seemed wrong, false. "I had to tell her quite a tale involving over-enthusiastic revision quills to explain away the marks."

Remus' eyes were fastened to Sirius' chest, as if he could see straight through the flesh, and was still examining the set of long, raking scratches down his back. When Sirius finished speaking, it was as if Remus had been pulled from a stupor, and his anger came raging back through his veins.

"Why did you have to come, Sirius?" he hissed, propping himself up against his elbows again. "You made me hurt you." His laugh was bitter as he fell back against his pillows. "No you didn't. It was my fault, of course. I hurt you. I hope you're satisfied. I hope you think that we're even now."

"Even?" Sirius laughed. "We won't be anywhere close to even until we've talked about what happened with Snape, Remus, all of it, every awful, humiliating detail."

It was the bitter edge to the laughter that sent a chill through Remus, reminding him immediately of his last conversation with Sirius.

_"We're going to have to talk about that too, aren't we? Wouldn't want one of us getting the wrong idea."_

"Don't make me talk to you," Remus whispered, wishing he could bury his head deep within his blankets and smother Sirius' voice out.

Coward. He was a weak coward.

"Haven't you done enough, Sirius?"

Say it.

"You serve my head on a silver platter to the Ministry executioners and then you – you _kiss_ me? And talking about it will make us _even_?"

Cowardice was better. He should've stuck with cowardice. He could feel Sirius' shock from the bed beside his. Evidently, Sirius had not expected Remus to actually breach the subject. Now that he had, his words hung in the air like a purple hippogriff, and neither of the boys was willing to expose his necks to appease the beast.

"I… I kissed you."

"Yes." And then, Remus surprising himself with his daring, "Why?"

"Why didn't you talk to me this last month?" Sirius swallowed audibly, and continued, swerving past Remus' question with the inelegance of an inept dueller. "Was it because of – of the kiss, or because of the Snape thing?"

Remus froze. His mouth cracked open, but he didn't know what he could say. What was the answer to that question? Did he even know?

_The Snape thing! Say the Snape thing! Say the Snape thing! Do it. Come on. _

But it wasn't quite the truth. He felt the urge to touch his lips at the whispers of memory, but he physically restrained himself. He knew without a doubt that he had had the wrong idea. There was only one way to avoid the arsenal of humiliation that Sirius was holding in Remus' face, and that was to tell the truth, a truth which ultimately meant nothing much at all.

"I can't forgive you for either," he whispered, and watched dumbly as Sirius slumped wordlessly into his pillows, turning his poor injured back to Remus once more.

**

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A/N: Oh, wow. Even I was crying out for fluff by the end of that.

**As my favourite hitchhiking manual proclaims, DON'T PANIC. That infamous, tortuous kiss will not remain solitary for too much longer. Indeed, a companion may just be coaxed out by your REVIEWS. **

****Nano = 18,164****

**REVIEW. Please? You surely don't want me to resort to poetry... again. :)**

**xx Froody**


	18. Pity Rights

There was nothing more to say, nothing more to hurt after Remus had told Sirius that he couldn't forgive him for the Snape betrayal or the kiss. It was terribly ironic, Remus later thought to himself, that this breaking point in their friendship had actually improved things on the whole.

They no longer ignored each other. There was no point. Being openly angry was equally pointless. The Marauders were whole again, four boys buzzing about the castle grounds in the blaring sunshine, enjoying the remnants of their Fifth Year, free of OWLs and homework and study and professors. It was almost time to return home for the long golden stretch of the summer holidays, and it felt almost like the end of every previous year.

The only flaw in the picture image of blissful post-exam magical mayhem was the constant ache in Remus' gut – well, that, and Sirius' frequently overcast expression.

It was all in the eyes. Such wide grey eyes couldn't hide emotion well, especially from those who watched. Remus almost wished that he wasn't hopelessly drawn into those stormy depths, not least because Sirius' eyes never seemed to be reciprocally focussed on him. How stupid, really. Why would Sirius look at Remus these days, anyway, after everything that had been done and said?

Why would Remus, sprawling across verdant lawns in the lazy summer heat, crack open an eyelid and peer past Peter's prostrate form to Sirius' face? Why would the ache in his belly intensify at the glimpse of a momentary anguish in hooded silver eyes, when he had explicitly forbidden himself to care?

James had the answer – or so the creases in his brow would scream as he took Remus aside one Thursday, the second-last day of the school term.

"You're being stupid now, Moony," he whispered urgently, ducking behind an abandoned couch in the common room and motioning Remus to join him. "I know that Sirius has basically lost your trust forever, mate, I know he completely screwed things up with the whole Snape thing, but – but you better believe that he's sorry. I don't care that you guys hang out with me and Wormtail now like nothing happened. All I care about is that Sirius has been having nightmares for days now – no, not about you – about going home for the summer, from what I can tell. He needs us more than ever, you know."

Crouching awkwardly, trying vainly to smooth his feathery hair beneath armchair level, Remus lowered his eyes from James' intense gaze. Yeah, so he'd heard Sirius fumbling about restlessly in his sleep for a few nights now. He had tried not to think too much of it. It wasn't his business anymore, was it? However, down here with James, examining a used piece of Drooble's Best, Remus was aware that Sirius' pain was his business. After all, he had contributed to its welfare recently; pain thrived in those stormy eyes whenever they caught the werewolf's watching stare.

"His family," Remus muttered to the chewed-up gum; it was less of a question than a statement of fact. Even though he hadn't spoken directly to Sirius about his personal life for over a month, Remus knew that the dark-haired boy had been dreading the annual return to his despised family.

"Did you know that his hideous witch of a mother has been sending her darling son regular letters concerning the disgrace he has been bringing upon the family ever since school started this year?"

"No," Remus said truthfully, peering up at James' serious expression now, slightly shocked. It was far from unusual to hear that Sirius was unwelcome in the family – he had loads of Regulus' increasingly bitter taunts to put up with every other morning at breakfast – but letters? Written insults, unshielded hostility? Remus felt a twinge of something that felt awfully like sympathy for Sirius, an emotion that he should not by rights be feeling. He had given up pity rights when he had rejected Sirius' apology, or whatever it had been, in the Hospital Wing.

Something inside him cared less than nothing about pity rights. Something inside him, or several things inside him, or maybe his entire sodding being had forgiven Sirius weeks ago during the terrible aftermath of the Snape incident, when Sirius had crashed to his knees in public, in tears. Many somethings grasped now at this opening of compassion in Remus' conscious mind, and held his eyes to James'.

"Look, mate. Please. Sirius would kill me if he knew I was asking this for him, especially after last full moon and all, but please. His family is going to be awful to him this summer, and he's really going to need all his friends behind him for this one. I don't know if he could put up with it all in his current state of mind. He's a bit skewed right now, you know. And he cares so much for you, Remus. He would stay in dog form the whole month through if you would allow him in again like you did when you were a werewolf."

"What?" Remus yelped, hushing his tone as he remembered that they were hiding from curious observers. "I scratched up his back, James! Is that what letting him in is?"

"No. After you scratched his back up, Moony, you played with him like normal, like nothing had happened."

"I play with him? I mean," Remus continued, hastily remembering the underlying issue, "look, James, I can't control how I act during a full moon, you know that." He dropped his eyes, unwilling to add to James' suspicions, but knowing that he should, for both Sirius' and his sakes. "It's not just the Snape incident, James. I think you know that."

"Does it really matter what it was, you silly berk?" James said dryly, rolling his eyes. "Do you think that whatever Sirius did to you will make you feel better when he rolls back to school in a state of complete and utter depression next year?"

The ache in Remus' belly intensified at James' words, and he grimaced unhappily. Of course he couldn't let this go on; James had been right all along. Things were not right, they were far from right, and even Moony could sense that under the blinding cloak of the full moon. Remus had been betrayed by Sirius. He had been completely exposed, and in so many ways.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the moral high ground was slowly slipping away from beneath the lycanthrope's feet. After all, hadn't his rejection of Sirius' friendship been a betrayal in itself?

Nothing excused Sirius, that hadn't changed. The recklessness of his thoughtless actions was completely his own. But hadn't he demonstrated (to the entire common room, nonetheless) just how much he regretted what he had done?

Even the kiss had been an apology, hadn't it? Sirius had thought that Remus wanted it or something like that. It had been an incredibly misguided, soul-destroying request for forgiveness – or at least, that was how Remus viewed it. Or how he had to view it.

And now it seemed that the pressure was on Remus to offer some form of happiness to Sirius to keep him going through the long, dark months of the summer holidays. Remus knew he owed it to his erstwhile friend. And some form of reconciliation might even provide some light to Remus on those nights under the waxing moon.

The only question was _how_?

**

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A/N: *cringe*

**I am totally, desolately sorry for the pitiful length of this chapter, but I thought that a snippet-y teaser would be better than nothing. I'm going away for a week, and won't have access to the internet (heaven help me). **

**And I PROMISE that the next chapter will contain a certain kind of sexy, sexy conciliation – with the right encouragement of course. ;)**

**xx Froody**


	19. We Die and Rise the Same

**A/N: This one is LONG, people. I am proud. Also, I just want to take a moment to thank my anonymous reviewers - I don't get a chance to say thanks via message, so right here, right now, I thank you. :) **

**Chapter title from John Donne. He wrote some amazing poetry. Some of it is incredibly, metaphysically sexual. Interpret as you wish.**

* * *

Sirius was asleep. His entire face had slackened as it lay plastered against the slightly grimy train window. The slight crinkles that had decorated his forehead for much of the past month were smoothed in his sleep. A regular fog clung to the cold glass of the window as Sirius breathed softly, his mouth hanging open like an eager puppy's snout, only without the companion of energy.

Remus watched Sirius sleep.

James and Peter had long since moved off to stalk Lily or Snape or the food trolley, Remus didn't really know which. He didn't really care which, to be honest. Conversation between the three hadn't exactly been scintillating once Sirius had fallen asleep. Remus had been attempting to avoid further pointed prompts from James regarding a true conciliation with Sirius before the separation of the summer holidays. Avoidance in this case constituted near silence and repeated aversion of the eyes.

Remus watched Sirius sleep, and counted the breath clouds. Really, if you thought about it, or closed your eyes part way and tilted your head a little with the movement of the train, the misted circles could almost be sheep. It looked a bit like sheep were leaping out of Sirius' mouth – a small variation on the usual sleep remedy.

Sirius wasn't much like a sheep. If any Marauder could be compared to a woolly and brainless follower, well, it would have to be Peter, really, but Remus would be a close second. He'd always followed his bigger, funnier and more energetic companions on whatever crazy pranking paths they had blindly chosen to take. He didn't really mind being a sheep, not really.

Remus watched Sirius sleep, and saw each swirl of fog peel off and evaporate in the wake of a new breath. The sheep leapt over the fence and wound their woolly way to their next destination – greener grass, or the shearing shed, or perhaps into his mother's next disastrous attempt at knitting.

Like the sheep fog, he had leapt clear away from Sirius' mouth. Wasn't that funny? He had broken away from the soft curve of those lips, which were curled in a pensive smile in sleep. He had cleared the fence and galloped far away from their friendship, leaving miles and miles of distance between them. Those pink lips had parted for him, for the briefest of brief moments, and Remus had peeled from them without a word.

But it was Sirius who sent these little sheep careening carelessly through the grimy window glass, wasn't it? His breath had formed words of betrayal and spoken them to Severus Snape, purveyor of the Dirty Secret nonetheless. His every breath now whooshed the previous cloud away. Those lips had pressed on his almost tenderly, almost desperately, no, entirely desperately, and wet like the tears on their faces - but the same mouth had blown apart the sturdy foundation of their friendship like it was merely a house of cards.

Remus watched Sirius sleep, and he watched his mouth, and he knew that he couldn't blame those delicately curved lips for the Snape incident. Sirius was the picture of innocence in his sleep. He was a lamb, pure and simple, and he was chasing the other sheep away from him with every escaped breath.

Remus was a sheep. Remus had been chased away by the petulant, thoughtless, and irresistibly charming selfishness of his friend, the lamb dressed in a black dog's clothing. But unlike the tiny circles of mist, Remus would not be chased away unknowingly. He had a choice. Or rather, he didn't really have a choice in the end, but he could pretend that he did, and consciously make the decision to stay plastered on the window with Sirius' face.

Remus decided not to melt away into the gloomy background of Sirius Black's patchwork of a life.

He knew that he'd been staring at Sirius' face for far too long, even if he was sleeping – but maybe especially because he was sleeping. His eyes were drawn to the patches of mist coming from Sirius' mouth, but they swung to soft lips as regularly as a pendulum.

This was a moment of utter intimacy for Remus. It made him extremely uncomfortable, but this was partially because he hadn't spent much time looking at Sirius lately. His eyes clung now to the familiar shapes and edges of his friend's body like he was remembering the very essence of their friendship. It seemed vitally important that he re-establish this physical memory in his mind.

It seemed vitally important that Remus affirm this physical memory with a tracing of the slumbering skin and smoothed forehead before him. There had never been a restriction on physical contact in their friendship before the incident. It seemed wrong that Remus restrict himself now. Eyes were personal, but touch could remind him more vividly of how things had been. This is what Remus told himself, and this is why his right hand now stretched tremulously towards Sirius' hunched shoulders.

There was peace in those slackened muscles. Remus wondered if he might absorb it and draw some peace into his own body. He wanted his racing pulse to settle. He wanted his arms to stop shaking and risk waking Sirius. However, there was no peace transferred in the touch. Rather, as his hand pressed lightly against the thin cotton t-shirt that clothed Sirius' back, his heart hammered through with even more force than before.

His fingers trailed lower. He couldn't stop himself. This was weird and entirely too intimate, and Sirius was asleep (which somehow made this whole remembering process both easier and more terrifying). His fingers brushed down, along the raised curve of spine, and came to rest on a stretched expanse of lower back.

Scars. Remus could feel the scars. They burned beneath his fingers like raw, searing guilt. The thin cotton hid nothing of the raised edges and angry lines. Remus stared down at his hands as they lay against black t-shirt, and realised that his claws must have aligned in precisely the same fashion. As a werewolf, he had torn across Sirius' lower back, etching these scars in regular stripes.

His hand slipped slightly as he shuddered, repulsed by the thought of tearing through Sirius' skin. Undeniably, Sirius had been Padfoot, and Padfoot's skin was covered by a great carpet of black fur, but that changed nothing, really. Sirius had retained the scratches in human form. Sirius had been forced to admit himself into Madam Pomfrey's care despite the risk of being discovered to have both broken the wizarding law and accompanied a werewolf during the full moon.

With a start, Remus realised that his hand, now resting far too low on Sirius' back, was rising and falling more quickly than it had before. Far too late, he snatched the incriminating hand away, but there was no way that Sirius wouldn't have felt the removal of the pressure. The t-shirt had ridden up in Sirius' sleep, and Remus' fingers had been lying against bare skin.

Clasping his hands together in his lap as if to demonstrate his complete innocence, Remus scooted away to the far end of the bench. He hung his head towards the compartment door, wishing for James or Peter to push it open and evaporate his imminent humiliation like a foggy breath on a window.

"Checking out the battle scars?" Sirius said with a yawn in his voice, but all Remus could hear was the underlying disparagement.

Remus didn't answer. He couldn't. He didn't want to. As neither of the boys moved from their huddled positions, Remus tried to pretend that Sirius had gone back to sleep, and would shortly forget this little incident, or dismiss it as a dream.

No such luck. The lycanthrope was never really privy to luck, anyway.

"Why'd you move away so far?" Sirius asked more loudly, and shook his head once to remove the long fringe from his eyes. The implied 'again' rang through Remus' mind like the clanging of a heavy church bell.

"I thought you were asleep," he said awkwardly, realising as he spoke that this fact really wouldn't help him much in this situation. Inanity seemed to be a primary actor in many of his recent decisions, come to think of it. Remus wanted to say something else, and maybe redeem a little dignity. "I suppose I wanted to check that you were, you know, alright, or something."

He flushed. This explanation seemed entirely inadequate, especially in view of their last conversation in the Hospital Wing.

It seemed to take forever before Sirius unravelled himself from his curled-up position against the window, but he finally swung himself around, pulling in more closely to Remus.

Remus couldn't help but to flinch as Sirius reached out and began to untangle the fingers that had tightened into a whitish fist. When his hands were finally spread flat against his legs, he stared blankly at the row of crescent indents that were set across his palms.

Sirius took a palm and held it against his own.

Remus paused for a moment, presumably lost in memory or something, all that was supposedly brought back by touch, but he came crashing back into his body a second later. All the better to fully experience the mad pounding in his chest.

"What are you doing?"

These were the words that popped out before anything else could filter through Remus' mind, and he flushed a brighter red. He didn't retract his hand from Sirius'. He thought it would be impolite, or unfair, or just a complete contradiction of his previous actions.

"You know I don't blame you at all for scratching me up, right?" Sirius breathed, and it was like the awkwardness of before was completely erased in the wake of this question. Remus couldn't apologise, exactly – the werewolf in him knew that Sirius' betrayal had deserved some form of retribution and refused to be contrite.

"Look, I, er, oh, sod it. Remus, come off it, please."

Ah. The fumbling Sirius that Remus had come to know quite well over the course of the past month. Remus could deal with this stage. He had fobbed off a lot of the reasonable argumentation thrown at him by black-haired boys in the last few weeks. He wasn't entirely sure why the fobbing off had been necessary anymore, to tell the truth. All he knew was that he couldn't allow Sirius to progress to the next stock in his arsenal: cruelty through bitter bluntness.

"Yeah, I know."

"What the hell does that mean? 'Yeah, I know'? Let's just talk, shall we?" Sirius' face was a picture of earnest frustration.

"Alright."

"Alright."

Neither looked at each other. The compartment rang with the ensuing silence, which lasted until Sirius barked out a harsh laugh and began stroking Remus' fingers gently. The contrast was hard to deal with. Remus barely knew how to respond, but he knew he had to. James' stern face kept popping into his mind now, reminding him of the duties of friendship. The disapproving spectacles were interposed with flashes of Sirius' lips, and sleeping Sirius' smooth forehead, and Remus' hand was being stroked, for Merlin's sake. A response was necessary.

"Erm."

Nice. Nice beginning. Idiot.

"I didn't mean what I said in the Hospital Wing, you know." This came out in a flurried mumble. Sirius' fingers paused for a moment, steadied over Remus' tensed knuckles, and then continued rubbing. "I, well, look. You look, for once. See, I'm incomprehensible too."

Remus almost smiled. This was going okay so far. Things were so much simpler when Sirius kept his mouth shut and his eyes averted.

"Thing is that I've forgiven you, Sirius. Maybe I shouldn't, maybe you really can't be trusted, but I can't stand it anymore, okay? I guess, I guess we're just friends, and you can't break that so easily. Maybe if I'd gotten Snape and the Ministry had had me executed, then the bonds of friendship would be bro-"

For once, Remus was extremely grateful to hear the sound of Sirius' low voice. He had been babbling without any sense of control. What was control when your fingers were trapped beneath someone else's? Where was control when your heart was racing faster than the Hogwarts Express?

"What do you forgive me for, Moony?"

A carefully phrased question, if there ever had been one. Sirius wanted to know the truth, once and for all, about where the two boys stood. Remus' hand twitched from beneath Sirius' as his fingers yearned to touch his lips at the echo of a distant kiss. The air in the compartment suddenly became heady. This was intimate. Far too intimate. And where had the awkwardness gone?

"For the Snape incident. And – and for everything else."

Ah. Welcome back, awkwardness.

Sirius removed his hand, and Remus unconsciously stretched out his fingers, feeling the cool air burn against his skin. He watched uncomfortably as Sirius flexed his own hand in his lap.

"Good. I've missed you like Prongs misses McGonagall during the summer holidays."

Without realising that he felt the inclination, Remus' face broke across into a wide smile.

"Couldn't have missed me that much, you berk. That's impossible."

Sirius grinned back from beneath his sweeping fringe. Another awkward silence fell upon them, and Remus toyed with the greyish hem of his t-shirt as he worked fiercely to avoid the need to meet Sirius' eyes. He was aware that the train must be close to London by now – it had been simply hours since they had left the station. He had fulfilled his promise to James, and he had satisfied that considerable part of himself that had been aching for Sirius' smiles since the whole terrible affair had begun.

Even this painful silence was better than those that they had been experiencing throughout the month, and so it seemed that neither would dare to upset the new conciliation. It was just as the train was pulling into Kings Cross Station that Sirius finally muttered, "I don't regret it, you know," and grabbed for his trunk as if to dart off immediately.

"Regret what?" Remus asked automatically, eyes catching at the fierce grey of Sirius' desperate determination.

"The- the-"

It looked like the cool and collected Black had vanished entirely as Sirius' face visibly paled to a dreadful hue. Remus' breath caught as the flustered boy turned away as if to leave without even finishing his sentence. This was unprecedented, and so called for unprecedented action.

Remus looked down, and found that his hands were caught on the thin fabric of Sirius' shirt.

"You shouldn't," he breathed, inspired by his own daring. Their eyes met, and the air fairly thrummed with tension.

"Shouldn't what?" Sirius all but squeaked, and cleared his throat hastily.

"The kiss," Remus said quietly, an obscene note of calm in his voice. "You shouldn't regret the kiss."

Where was this calm voice coming from? Where had the sudden fierce strength in his hands come from? What did this all mean, and what was Remus going to do next?

His stomach dropped as his mind began to process the meaning behind his actions.

"I shouldn't?" Sirius whispered, and it was the ache of hope in his voice that closed shop in Remus' rational mind. This was child-like Sirius. This was vulnerable Sirius, Sirius with the sheep leaping out of his mouth, Sirius with the crinkles erased from his forehead and the slight smile on his face as he slept. This was Sirius the lamb slipping out of his doggy coat.

There was only one answer to this question that Remus could consider, and it was an answer that brought the forces of awkwardness and intimacy into breathy, foggy close proximity. His hands slowly dragged handfuls of cotton closer towards him. His entire body seemed to shiver as Sirius stumbled against him. His eyes met the terrified, exhilarated grey in Sirius', and shut against the image just as quickly.

Remus leant forward, and pressed his lips tentatively to Sirius' open mouth, searching for the soft brush of a month ago. It wasn't wet. His cheeks felt oddly dry. His mouth felt dry and desperate until Sirius suddenly responded, and lips began to slide against his own. Remus' hands fell open, releasing a flap of creased fabric, and came to rest nervously against Sirius' waist. There wasn't so much a conscious nervousness in his actions – there wasn't much consciousness left in him at the moment.

Nervousness soon departed both consciousness and subconsciousness when Sirius' hands came down and forcibly secured Remus' grasp about his waist. There was barely a hint of timidity between their mouths now as Sirius pressed and Remus felt the thrill of coarse friction between the skin of their chin and cheeks. Above all there was the slide of moving lips and suddenly, the slick entrance of a tongue, and then there was a flavour and an opening of mouths and Remus felt his entire body begin to swell with the heat of it all.

He gasped as Sirius pushed against him violently, pressing him backwards, back towards the seats, back towards the window. His knees buckled as they hit the edge of the seat, and he fell against the window with Sirius somehow pressed against him. His eyes shuttered a moment later as sharp teeth nipped at the lobe of his ear, and he was lost entirely, lost to the heat and the teeth and the lips and his hands were on a waist, he could feel the thin cotton beneath his fingers, and he remembered touching the t-shirt before, and he remembered Sirius sleeping, and he remembered Sirius, Sirius, and his lips were suddenly frozen against the wet mouth above him.

Sirius, panting, drew back for a moment, and Remus stared at the red haze in his cheeks, and the glinting brightness in his eyes.

"What?" Sirius asked, his voice low and rough, and there was more of the child, more of the lamb, in the question than Remus could bear.

His entire body throbbing, alive, clinging to the heat and the thrill that was hovering anxiously now, Remus curled in on himself. He turned his face against the cold glass of the window beside him, and watched the circles of mist grow and fade, and grow and fade.

He felt the sudden cool against his body as Sirius pulled away without another word. A moment later, the compartment door slammed shut.

The train had come to a stop. Remus could hear the voices of chattering students as they walked past the compartment on their way to their parents and their holidays.

He breathed out slowly, and stared out through the cloud, seeing nothing. He felt nothing.

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A/N: Please review. I get all nervous that I'm not meeting expectations.

**Oh, and as a side note, coz I've been wielding several enquiries lately, no, this is not the end of the story. The story will end with the words THE END. Or a Mexican hat dance. It all depends on whether or not I go crazy working on my nano.**

**REVIEW! **

**xx Froody**


	20. Grindylows

Icy water drew at the shore and dragged across the pebbles. The pull ebbed and flowed, straining ever forward before sinking back into itself.

Remus started as water began to ease through the hole in his sneaker, and hurriedly hitched his leg onto the rock that he was sitting on. He groaned as he prodded the wetness with his fingers. It took so long to dry shoes, even in the heat of summer, and the only other pair he had was a set of mouldy old thongs he wore when his mother forced him to do the gardening.

It was an inescapable fact; his socks would be squelchy now. It would be dreadfully unpleasant to walk home in wet, holey sneakers, and equally unpleasant to face his mother's wrath. He had promised to take care of this pair, after all. The last couple of pairs of sneakers had become inexplicably unwearable after several volleys of mud and dog slobber and that particular episode with the badger in Transfiguration.

Remus sighed. There was nothing left to do, was there? His hunched shoulders were beaded with sweat, bare under the burn of a particularly fierce late July sun. His faded jeans were easy to slide off. He kicked off both shoes and peeled off his socks as he hopped along the shore, wincing as pebbles jabbed against the soles of his feet.

Ignoring the icy thrust of water slicing across his bare skin, Remus waded into the lake. He forced himself to breathe as he advanced, sinking lower and lower into the inky waters, grabbing earnestly at the pebbles beneath his feet, brushing against swirling weeds with a grimace. When the pebbles became too low to reach, and even the slimy fronds of lake weed had disappeared into the impenetrable depths below him, Remus stopped, and allowed his feet to float to the surface.

A small smile settled itself around the lines and bruising tiredness on his face. He hadn't been swimming in this lake for years. To tell the truth, he had been irked by the vision of grindylows lurking about in the weed beds, waiting to grab at his ankle and pull him under. It was interesting to Remus that he didn't find the thought of a waiting grindylow so terrifying anymore.

This was all part of growing up, he supposed – letting go of childhood fears and whatnot. It was rather nice to feel mature about something for once. After all, with the hindsight of adulthood and maturity and all that, most scary things could be reduced to diddlysquat when compared with the reality of the full moon.

Sweeping his arms through the icy water, feeling numbness settle into his skin, Remus briefly thought back to the full moon that had just passed. If he had opened his eyes and looked down at his pale chest, he would have been able to confirm the memories of the torturous pain that came flooding into his mind.

It had been hard. It had been incredibly hard to wake up the next morning and feel the old depths of nausea grip into his stomach relentlessly. It had felt like nothing had ever changed to make the transformation better.

James had sent him a letter, his handsome owl swooping down to Remus' bedroom window as the lycanthrope lay listlessly in bed. The letter had certainly been a distraction – Remus just wasn't sure if it had been welcome or not.

_Moony-_

_Hope you've managed okay without us. You must be in shocking pain right now. I'm really sorry. I know there's nothing we could really do, what with your parents and all, but still – sorry. Just remember that the Marauders are with you at every full moon, even if we can't be there physically. Get better, okay? _

_And owl me. We haven't heard from you. I don't need to know why, we're just worried about you, that's all._

_Prongs_

We. The letter rung with the sense of 'we' that James had injected into those last two sentences. Remus' brain gnawed over that collective as he propelled himself defiantly about the lake, kicking his feet with vigour. Was Sirius staying with James? Remus had assumed that Sirius' parents would refuse to allow their son to spend further time with the Muggle-loving Potters. That was why James had been so worried about Sirius returning to his family this summer, wasn't it?

_Enough, enough, enough_, Remus instructed his traitorous mind, ripping his thoughts from the image of Sirius' face, dark with pain and betrayal.

It said enough that James had been the only person to contact Remus since the beginning of the summer holidays. It wasn't like Remus really minded. He had never expected much correspondence from Peter, who wasn't fond of picking up a quill when he had a chance to avoid it. There had certainly been no expectation of a letter from Si- anyone else – worrying at his mind.

It said enough that Remus was, at that very moment, trying very hard not to think of the second letter from James, the one that had just been delivered this morning. Remus couldn't deny that he was imbued with a certain relief and pleasure at this proof that one of his friends remembered who he was. He spent so much of his lonely hours thinking of them that he felt that his existence was almost given worth by this contact. However, the content of the letter was far from comforting.

He plunged his head backwards into the water, squeezing his eyes shut and holding his breath fiercely, feeling the burn of cold on his cheeks with savage pleasure. Bursting back up for air, he relaxed once more on the lake's surface, rippling his fingers along the water by his sides.

His lungs expanded with air. He scowled bitterly, eyes closed against the glare of the sun. His mind remained fixed on thoughts of the letter that was currently stuffed in the back pocket of his faded jeans on the shore.

_Moony-_

_Reply already, alright? Don't make me come down there and get you. Actually, that's exactly why I'm writing this letter, to tell the truth. Get your paws on some floo powder and come to my house straight away. I don't want to explain this in a letter, but something's up with Sirius, and he needs his friends. All of them. Especially you._

_Get here _now_. _

_Prongs_

Sirius needed him.

With that one, simple line of thought surfacing behind his closed eyes, his mind was suddenly inundated with all the fears and doubts and shame and embarrassment that he thought he had managed to quash beneath pure self-resolve.

Sirius. Needed him.

Needed him like fire needs oxygen. Flaring and burning in a train compartment, pressed against the cold glass of a window, hot and cold.

Despite the numbing chill of the water, Remus was bitterly cold. His limbs trembled there on the surface of the lake like the flicker of a flame in the breeze.

Where were the grindylows now? Why did maturity bring infinitely worse fears to a head?

And how did he feel beneath the fear? Beneath the hot and cold of his darting thoughts, the burning memories that rose above his frozen resolve, Remus couldn't feel the timbre deep within his chest.

He wanted to see Sirius. Desperately. He wanted to see James too, but that was a less complicated need. He needed to see James as a friend. He needed to see Sirius because that was what his mind had been screaming for the last month of stultifying holiday nothingness.

He wanted to comply with the urgent demands of James' letter. The floo powder was sitting in a small jar on the cluttered mantelpiece in his house. That morning, even as James' owl had flown from the kitchen window with one final warning hoot, Remus had lit a hasty fire in the soot-lined fireplace and grabbed for the jar without a thought.

_Sirius needs his friends. Especially you_.

Sirius needed him. Remus needed to see Sirius. But _why_, and that was the question that had set the jar of floo powder firmly back on the mantelpiece, chasing Remus down through the unkempt garden and out to the pebbled shore of the lake.

What was he going to do when he saw Sirius? Grab him and press him against a wall and go at him with the complete absence of self-restraint that had been seen in the Hogwarts Express? Remus didn't even understand himself anymore. Sirius was his _friend_.

As he shuddered violently, his legs began to drift inexorably downwards into dark water, his balance completely thrown out. Remus forced himself to lie still, clenching his fists by his sides and holding his shoulders rigidly at his side. It wouldn't do to sink down to the bottom of the lake. Despite himself, he had a momentary vision of a grindylow, and the brief stabbing fear brought a wan smile to his face.

Maturity. Who needed it, anyway?

Back on the train, tracing the scars beneath Sirius' shirt, pulling into a kiss that broke so many boundaries that Remus hadn't even thought of – it had been like losing control. He had felt utterly out of control, and when his brain had finally caught up, and he had been able to register what his body was doing, he had frozen.

His body hadn't been under the rigid mental control that it always had to be under. His hands had grabbed Sirius' shirt without Remus' consent. It was almost like the full moon. It was almost like being ripped from his soul and his mind, his body reaching wildly towards something beyond tangible control.

Fear was the full moon.

Fear was a loss of control.

Fear was the glint of wild exhilaration in Sirius' eyes, and the meshing of lips, and the hard chill of glass behind his back.

Fear was stuffed into the back pocket of Remus' jeans back on the shore, and the letter was tangible. Ultimately, there was no real choice, was there? Remus had never really had control when it came to his friends. He needed to get to James' house as soon as possible, and this knowledge caused his chest to flutter with panic.

He kicked himself around, wincing as the cold water gushed about his stomach once more, and began swimming to the shore. He tried to ignore the small twinges of dread as weed brushed about his bare legs, and then gave up.

Fear was a childhood image of a slimy grindylow hovering about the weed beds.

Remus swam faster, kicking his legs with renewed vigour.

Maturity was darting from one fear to the next. Or, at least, that's what it felt like.

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A/N: Sorry for the delay, guys. Hope you enjoyed this one. Hopefully less introspection in the next chapter, eh? ;)

**STUDY QUESTIONS**

**1. What would your boggart be? **

**2. Have you bought **_**Beedle the Bard**_** yet, and if not, why not? :)**

**(Please) REVIEW! **

**xx Froody**


	21. Facing Fears

_Something's up with Sirius, and he needs his friends. All of them. Especially you._

Especially you, especially you, especially _you_.

James' words. Two words wrapped in meaning and discomfort and spinning through Remus' head as he stepped into the warm breath of emerald flames.

"Potter Manor," he managed to cry aloud once within the fireplace, clasping his hands to his ears, his elbows against his chest as he tried to concentrate. Nausea clawed and spat within his belly as he travelled, yet never came to focus above the two words resounding within his skull.

Finally, eyes squeezed tightly closed, Remus burst out from the fireplace and stumbled blindly into what felt awfully like a human body. He fell to the ground, hands grabbing wildly at the person who had been standing in the way.

A familiar voice swore loudly as someone else began to cackle, and Remus, sooty face pressed against lush carpet, felt the overwhelming urge to die immediately of embarrassment. It was suddenly all too easy to remember why he disliked floo powder so very violently.

"Nice of you to pop in, Moony," said James jovially; he had finally ceased his cackling and his voice was now rather close to Remus' ear. As he cracked his eyes open, wearily accepting the necessity of performing certain social niceties (such as removing his dirty face from the white carpet) he saw that a hand was hovering impatiently beside his head.

"Thanks," he muttered, grabbing the hand. Remus almost fell back down when he realised that those cool fingers did not, in fact, belong to James, but to another dark-haired boy.

It seemed that Remus, despite his initial assumptions, had the capacity to feel even more awkward than he had felt landing face-first on the floor of James' manor.

"Oh, er," he began uselessly, fumbling backwards out of Sirius' grasp and tripping slightly on the thick rug underfoot. "Er-"

"Hello to you, too," interrupted Sirius shortly, grinning briefly before ducking his chin. A dark curtain fluttered promptly shut, and Remus was left staring blankly at the thin line of Sirius' mouth.

"So," James said pointedly, interrupting the silence. As he grabbed Remus' shoulder, directing him and his trunk to James' bedroom, an odd frown creased his forehead above his glasses. "Haven't seen you for a while, Moony. Didn't feel inclined to reply to the letters, then?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" muttered Remus, knowing full well that he was behaving rather oddly. He cleared his throat, willing himself to imbue a touch of lightness into the conversation. "Too busy forgetting how to fall out of fireplaces with your style and grace, Prongs."

James chuckled, and his grasp on Remus' shoulder seemed to lessen slightly. "Not many are blessed with my style, that is true."

"For which I personally give my silent thanks," called Sirius from behind them, a clear note of mocking in his voice. "Now, when _I_ fall out of a fireplace-"

"Hold on," Remus said abruptly, stopping short in the corridor and nearly causing another collision as the other two boys stumbled around him. His pulse had slowed a little, and his nausea had faded into background noise, and his newly cleared head was demanding immediate answers. He had come expecting some terrible circumstance that required his urgent help. "Sirius needs me. _Especially_ me."

Sirius produced a bark of shocked laughter while James turned to look at Remus properly, eyes widened a tad in confusion. Remus shook his head, scowling as he felt the heat of embarrassment roar across his cheeks.

"That's what you said in your letter, James, and I was really quite worried. What's going on?"

Remus was hoping for a rather fine explanation at this point. He needed James to have told the truth in that letter so that his anxiety, nerves and embarrassment had been worth something. He had locked himself away from communication with his friends these holidays for a reason. He had been trying to sort himself out, figure out what he was doing and why he was doing it, and now, here he was, trapped in the company of Sirius and James, and it felt like nothing had changed at all.

Scowling at the floor, Remus felt his fears rear up suddenly through his stomach. He clenched his fists and felt his momentary panic ease into more controllable tension.

As James and Sirius exchanged a look (this slight movement was so predictable that Remus didn't actually need to see it) Remus decided that his original instinct – to act all cheery like his friends expected – was perhaps the correct one. It just seemed a little late now, that was all.

"Subtle much?" James said lightly, slipping his hand away from Remus' shoulder entirely after a friendly squeeze. "That letter was confidential, mate, eh? Besides, I just really wanted to know that you were okay, too, you know."

Remus grimaced, but lifted his head to look James in the eyes. It wouldn't do to act petulantly. James would undoubtedly start making jokes about the lycanthrope having finally reached puberty, and Sirius – well, he didn't want to know what Sirius would think.

"Sorry. I was just worried. And it's really good to see both of you, really." He exchanged an oddly nervous smile with James, and then turned to Sirius. His smile slipped away as he was confronted by a steely glare. Remus froze for a moment before realising that Sirius' sudden anger didn't seem to be directed towards him. The clenched jaw shifted as Sirius began to speak, his voice low and strangely hoarse.

"I moved out. Left home – or left my parents, you know. Hogwarts has always seemed more like home to me. Hell, this house seems more like home to me, even if I'm forced to shack up with Prongs."

Sirius smiled tightly, and Remus could tell that the humour in his words was forced, tainted with bitterness.

Thrown off balance by the abruptness of this explanation, Remus rocked back on his feet slightly. Words evaded him as Sirius' smile faded with the renewed strength of his tensed jaw line.

James, too, appeared startled by the short nature of Sirius' announcement. Remus watched numbly as James slung a comforting arm around Sirius' shoulder, and received his disgruntled look without response. Clearly, this was an issue that James had intended to treat with caution and subtlety. Clearly, Remus wasn't conforming to James' intention.

"Gerroff, you berk," Sirius mumbled, shoving half-heartedly at James' gesture of supportive affection. "I may be sleeping in your room, but that doesn't mean you get to hold me."

"Erm," Remus offered in the ensuing silence, which seemed to the lycanthrope to be imbued with unwanted implication. He shook himself as both Sirius and James stared at him inquisitively, frowns lining both of their foreheads. "I'm really sorry, Padfoot, about your family and all."

Remus grimaced. Not good enough. Sirius' decision would have repercussions throughout the rest of his life. He thought that he was finally beginning to understand the note of urgency in James' letter. Deliberately, he cleared his throat softly and continued, his eyes sweeping the carpet beneath their feet.

"That must have been a terrible decision to make, Sirius, but – but I'm really happy for you, too. I mean, they've been giving you hell for years." Remus blinked, a flurry of questions suddenly rising to the surface of his mind. The most important query slid out first. "Are you going to live here during holidays, then?"

Sirius' gaze fell to the floor, and James coughed slightly. "Well, yeah. My parents would be well upset if he didn't. He's caused so much trouble over here in the past years that they already feel responsible for him."

"Right," said Remus, feeling rather foolish. "Erm, you – you know I'll always be here for you, Sirius, er, in case you need something. Or feel bad. Or –"

"Yeah, I know," Sirius interrupted, eyes still stuck to the white threads of the carpet.

"Right," Remus repeated, glancing desperately at James.

"Right," James said breezily, ignoring the sudden tension. "Well, come on, better get your stuff to my room before the end of the holidays."

Although still shocked by the news of Sirius' newfound autonomy, and greatly curious as to the circumstances that had led to this final decision, Remus was grateful to be distracted by James' casual conversation as he unpacked his things. This gratefulness faded slightly later when James received an owl from Peter and decided that he had to leave immediately for Hogsmeade – alone.

"Wormtail says that Evans just entered the Leaky Cauldron!" he cried, eyes flashing with excitement behind his glasses. Remus wondered if James realised that stalking was a criminal offence, and attempted to explain as much, but was completely ignored.

"So shouldn't we go to Diagon Alley with you?" Sirius asked dryly. "We could keep you out of legal danger, restrict your stalking and such."

"Nobody is going to restrict my anything," replied James grimly, grabbing at a handful of floo powder and setting off promptly by himself.

A day alone with Sirius had not been strictly within Remus' contemplation when he'd flooed off from home that morning, having finally convinced his mother to let him go to James'. Indeed, such an opportunity for heartfelt conversation was not received with great optimism by the lycanthrope, who settled himself across from Sirius on James' large bed with a small grimace.

However, it seemed that Sirius felt differently. Lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, he kicked his shoes off into mysterious corners of the room and started talking.

"You know, Moony, I made a vow to myself every day while I was locked in my bedroom on my mother's orders. I promised myself that I would never let fear get in the way of – of the stuff that I needed to do." He paused, evidently steadying the slight tremor that had crept into his voice. "Like – like leave home."

Remus was frozen on the side of the bed, his eyes locked on Sirius' face. Something tightened deep within his stomach. He could tell that this conversation was far from safe – and yet he couldn't move. And he didn't really want to move. He needed to listen, and face the old fears. Wasn't that what Sirius was saying?

"And I did, Moony, I got up and packed my trunk and got the hell out of my parents' filthy house. It took sixteen years to work up the courage, but now it's done."

Pride vibrated through Sirius' low voice, pride mixed with the remnant traces of some wild exhilaration – the type of adrenaline rush produced in the wake of fear and self-doubt. Admiration flooded into Remus' thoughts as he stared into Sirius' eyes, which appeared hard as slate in their triumph. This pride was earned.

A loose, unidentified shame settled about Remus' stomach as he tried not to compare his own recent actions with the self-won emancipation of his friend. Avoidance was never a great strategy, was it? He knew this, and he had always known it, yet this knowledge had never stopped him before.

Although he had responded to James' summons, hadn't he? Did that count for something, at least?

The answer was clearly in the resounding and negative cramp in his belly. Remus hadn't faced up to anything yet. What was maturity again? Something about facing up to your fears? He had always considered Sirius to embody a certain picture of immaturity. Funny, that.

Narcissism, meet irony.

Sitting there on the bed, Remus gazed at this new Sirius, who seemed to have shed the skin of the hell-raising Fifth Year from the previous month. He realised that his mouth had slid open with slight awe, and clamped his lips together, embarrassed.

"So I'm not going to let things stay this way between us, Moony," Sirius said decisively, his eyebrows drawn in determination. "You can't keep being afraid to speak to me, and I think we've both had enough of the guilt."

Remus nodded dumbly, his chest clenching painfully. More than anything, he wanted things to go back to the way they used to have been between the two boys. He wanted the old jokes, he wanted the old sarcasm and teasing. He wanted to be able to string words together in a coherent sentence without stuttering.

"I'm going to ask you something, right now, Moony, and I want you to be entirely honest and truthful with me."

Ducking his chin against his chest, taking refuge against the confrontational promise of Sirius' words, Remus focussed for a moment on remembering how to breathe. Face the fear. Face those grey eyes. Nod, and say yes. He peered up through his lashes and drank in the melange of exhilaration and nerves tinting Sirius' eyes.

"Yes."

A moment of silence. Remus inhaled. Exhaled. Prepared to repeat his answer, cheeks flushing.

"Can I hold your hand?"

Remus' head shot up, and he felt his face become even hotter. "What, now?"

"Yeah."

Without consciously deciding on an answer, Remus felt his head nod the affirmative. Panicking, he swept his eyes up to Sirius', which had gained a familiar edge of mocking humour. This familiarity only fuelled Remus' muddle of desperation, and, giving up entirely on mental vacillation, he slowly stretched his hand towards Sirius.

"No need to be a girl about it," Sirius grinned broadly, grabbing at Remus' outstretched fingers, which had begun to tremble rather violently. After a brief moment in which Remus felt himself overwhelmed by something akin to shock, his entire body surging in a heat which flooded from his fingertips, his brain responded automatically to the insult.

"Hey!"

Remus burst into slightly hysterical laughter, having thwacked Sirius on the side of the head with his spare hand.

"You hit like a girl, too," Sirius grumbled, distracting Remus from his laughter as he entwined his fingers with the lycanthropes'. He felt his pulse quicken, and met Sirius' wounded glare with wide eyes and a smile.

"Tell me that next full moon."

As Sirius gasped in mock horror, throwing his unoccupied hand across his face in a parody of surrender, Remus felt his cheeks begin to ache, beaming unashamedly across the bed. He was joking with Sirius. They were teasing each other like they hadn't been able to for months and months, and they were holding hands, and Remus didn't feel uncomfortable.

To tell the truth, he could do this forever.

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A/N: Holding hands is adorable.

**Hope you enjoyed the chapter! I listened to the requests for more Sirius, and I even inserted some humour. :) It must be all the Douglas Adams I'm reading – though that wouldn't explain the shameless fluff. **

**Could the story finally be reaching something of an end to the dragging angst? **

**REVIEW!**

**Thanks as always for the comments and the critique. They're much appreciated.**

**xx Froody**


	22. Like a Dog He Hunts in Dreams

**A/N: Chapter title from Tennyson.**

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A flicker from ahead seems to beckon impatiently, a flaming torch held above the blinding darkness. His eyes meet the light and he catches his breath at the promise it holds.

His claws scratch restlessly against the loose soil underfoot. Muscles ridge through his back, tensing. His belly scrapes the dirt as he crouches, ready to pounce forward.

There is no pain. There is only the lofty torch ahead.

The darkness slides into a greyed blur as the wolf creeps forward. Clarity is held in the light. Clarity is solely reserved for the flaming torch ahead. All else can fade to the obscure, to the dry leaves scraping beneath paws and the surrounding beat of darkness.

The pounding of adrenaline clenches the air taut with promise. A heartbeat drums a tattoo into the wolf's consciousness, and yet lucidity waits ahead in the light of the flames.

_Follow the torch, follow the light…_

Enough, enough, and the pervasive thrumming quickens, and the wolf leaps through the blurred darkness. Agile and swift, muzzle bared in anticipation, teeth glinting in the echo of the flames ahead, the creature is fixated on its goal. Cold air rifles through its fur, and the wolf feels nothing.

There is no pain.

There is no moon.

There is a torch held aloft in the distance, and nothing else registers in the simple plane of the wolf's mind.

A howl pierces through the surrounding blur, and then another, and another, until the tortured wailing overcomes the percussive pounding of a heartbeat.

Now there is pain, searing against ribs and torn flesh and muscles that ache with misuse, and yet the wolf pays no heed.

_Find the torch, find the light_…

The wolf slips through the wretched cacophony with the ease of pure focus, sliding through the night like thread through shining needlepoint. A new scent catches at the air, flooding into a snout that lifts and twists with suspicion. Familiar. It is a familiar scent to the wolf, and holds no remembered threat. Familiar.

Friend.

Ahead. The scent courses through the airstreams from ahead, the direction of the light, and the wolf quickens pace gladly. It travels alone, that is the way, that is accepted; but pack is instinct too. Pack. The familiar smell is compliant. No threat.

Alpha.

Assured of its dominance, the wolf bolts through the darkness like lightening slicing clouds asunder. The torchlight flickers steadily ahead, more enticing than the bloodied carcass of a kill. The light is a beacon.

The night is adrenaline, and thrill.

The wolf can feel new vibrations underfoot, the rhythmic pounding of another, the owner of the familiar scent. A dark tail brushes across the path of the wolf's vision, momentarily blocking the light. Speed is essential now for clarity. The wolf tears soil apart as it overtakes the dark shape of its friend.

As the wolf passes, its muzzle twitches to the side, eyes leaving the torchlight momentarily. The silver glint of a familiar eye slashes through the blackened blur.

Focus is broken.

When the wolf turns back for the clarity found in a flickering flame, the torch is gone. All is darkness, and howling, and heartbeat, and –

_Padfoot_.

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Remus woke up, sweaty and twisted in his blankets. Disorientation smothered at his senses as he struggled to see the flame. His breathing quietened as he gazed blindly about the room, finding it black and still as an underground lake.

The stillness seemed stagnant after the rush of the hunt. His fingernails tore into sheets, searching for dirt and leaves. He stopped himself quickly, but his eyes searched on through the darkness. His heart could not be forcibly stilled.

Where was the light? Where was the torch?

Senses heightened to inhuman intensity, Remus could not prevent himself from sniffing at the air. Despite the close darkness, and the lack of movement, there was a worrying scent about.

Had he been properly awake, Remus might have dismissed this worrying smell to be the by-product of the practice of sharing a room with several rather worrying teenage boys. However, half-wrapped in sleep and cloaked in canine senses, the scent was more carefully examined.

Fear. Below the immediate sharpness, a quieter tang. Tears.

If human ears could prick, Remus' did. His sleep-tussled head swivelled in the darkness to the immediate right. Familiar smell. Tainted with tears.

Sirius.

Before he could properly recognise what he was doing, Remus had dragged himself from his sheets and padded drowsily to the bed beside his. The cold air gasped at his skin, stealing the warmth of blankets and adrenaline.

He ignored the sudden cool. His clouded focus was fixed on the tuft of black hair that was sprawled vulnerably across a pillow. It was only by squinting that Remus could make out these shapes in the darkness. There wasn't a face to be seen, only the hair, and no movement, but Remus advanced nonetheless. He could smell tears. He could smell Sirius.

At the edge of the wooden bed frame, Remus paused. His bare feet gripped the floorboards with growing unease, but he had come this far. A sniff wrenched through the air, deafening. Infinitesimal. Cacophony to Remus' night hearing.

"Padfoot?" he whispered, voice hoarse from sleep.

No response.

Remus' hands dangled helplessly above the covers of the bed. Something inside him yearned to ensure comfort and security. He vacillated.

Another threadbare, barely-there sniff.

His hands lunged forward without the direction of his drowsy brain. Remus pulled back the covers with effort. The silvery glint of Sirius' eyes interrupted the room's stubborn darkness. Familiar grey was brightened with tears.

"Padfoot," Remus repeated, sliding slowly to his knees. "You – you okay?"

Sirius' empty hands seemed to grasp for the blanket that had been peeled away. Remus could see the slender white shapes of fingers too elegant for their masculine body, and remembered their strength. He remembered the confident grasp of that morning, the cockiness that belied the tenderness that had been all-too-evident beneath.

Taking a breath that seemed too deep in the stillness of the bedroom, Remus brought his own hand down and entwined his fingers in Sirius'. Silver slits closed as if in relief. The pale light that peered through the railing of the curtain glanced upon a solitary tear track. Remus, who had come into full consciousness with sudden worry, moved instinctively, pressing his warm face against the hand he held clutched in his own.

"Bad dream," Sirius breathed, and the unevenness in his voice was barely audible. "Don't worry, I'm fine, you can go back –"

Sirius' unsteady voice broke off as Remus shook his head slowly, rocking his cheek against the skin below. He could sense the lie even without the aid of human intuition. Remus was no stranger to bad dreams. The air still smelt of fear.

"Stay with me, then, I don't care," Sirius muttered tiredly, and Remus wondered if he should blush. He didn't. The night was too still, the room was too dark.

Without warning, the bed beside Remus' head crinkled with moving sheets. He raised his cheek questioningly, and found that Sirius had rolled across to the far side of the mattress, leaving a bare expanse interrupted only by their woven hands.

Remus eyed the empty space. Tiredness roared like an aching yawn through his body. His cold-prickling skin could almost feel the heat radiating from the sheets. It was only when Sirius gave a desperate little squeeze on his fingers that Remus managed to decide, and he rolled onto the bed quickly after that. He could be soothing. He could do that.

Sirius produced a tight little smile as Remus peered across their shared pillow in concern. He didn't need to ask if Sirius needed to talk about his bad dream. They knew each other too well for that. If Sirius wanted to talk, he would talk.

The band of protective friendship that squeezed worriedly about Remus' chest at this moment banished all thoughts of the past six months from mind. Right now, it was just the two of them, two sixteen-year-old schoolboys secure in the simplicity of friendship.

Sirius rolled his head forward across the pillow and pressed his forehead to Remus', slowly, as if in caution.

Remus froze. He tried in vain to settle the sudden drumming that was assaulting his chest. A wry voice inside queried the simplicity of their friendship, and he almost pulled away. It was the sorrowful glint in familiar grey eyes that relieved the abrupt tension. It was the swelling of the scent of fear, and the widening of wet lashes.

Remus closed his eyes, feeling himself give in to the warmth of the bed and the heat of the contact. He knew fear. He knew pain.

As the heat seared through Remus, enflaming his cheeks and rippling up from his fingertips, he cracked open his eyes and peered once more across the pillow. Sirius' eyes, so close, were open, and his face had relaxed from its mask of tension. As the pallid light caught on the wet grey glint, Remus thought he saw a flicker of something indescribable.

_Find the torch, find the light_…

_Follow the torch, follow the light…_

He closed his eyes once more, tightening his grasp on Sirius' fingers, and luxuriated in the warmth of a silent gasp that brushed across his face.

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**A/N: …**

**CLIFFHANGER: Will Remus truly see the light this time? **

**Oh, loved this chapter. Loved writing it. Loved the fact that so much can be resolved without fumbling words and awkward interruptions. **

**The story is drawing to a close, and the plot is possibly even tightening into actual unangsty fluff, so be excited. **

**REVIEW! **

**xx Froody**


	23. How Odd

"Oi! Hazel!" Sirius called loudly through the throng of jeans and summer dresses. A startled head turned towards the Marauders. "Check it out, Peter's developed some muscle!" Ignoring the shorter boy's squeak of protest, Sirius yanked an arm high into the air, pointing and waving until Hazel turned her back on him.

"Why'd you have to do that?" James muttered, disapproval highly evident in his voice. Sirius glowered at him in response, before becoming distracted by Peter's swift kick to his left shin.

"Hey!" Sirius yelped, wincing as James gave Peter a high five.

"Nice, Pete," Remus said quietly, smiling at the smirking boy. "Standing up for yourself. Good job."

"Had to liven up this party somehow," said Sirius, his brow drawn sulkily. James nodded his agreement with some fervour.

"Until Evans – er, Lily gets here, there's absolutely nothing to hold my interest."

"Thanks, guys." Remus shook his head in mock injury. "Still, I can't believe you actually got her to agree to accept your invitation."

It was really quite miraculous, the way James had procured a promise of Lily's presence at his impromptu end-of-summer party, held in the delightfully sprawling Potter Manor. The news of her acceptance had managed to distract even Remus from more immediate personal concerns. His gaze had finally been pulled away from the circles of fatigue beneath Sirius' eyes.

"Things were different when I saw her in Diagon Alley," James explained earnestly, provoking an excessive groan from Sirius. They had all been told this particular tale several times in the past few days – several times each day, to be more precise. "She didn't seem to hate me with the same burning passion." He frowned lightly. "To tell the truth, I think she may have been distracted by stuff at home. I – I didn't really want to pry too deeply into the subject."

Remus blinked once in surprise. Tact? James? Tactful James? The world was surely ending. He puffed out his cheeks, and then decided to contribute. "She has this sister at home, James. A muggle. From what I've heard, she makes life extremely difficult for Lily."

James' frown deepened, and when he glanced over at Remus, his forehead was creased with worry. "She makes trouble for Lily? I, well, I never really knew…"

Sighing lightly, Remus offered a short smile. "Maybe she'd like to vent about it. Go and ask her. She just walked in."

Remus watched with some amusement as James ducked off immediately, weaving through the crowd of their school friends with all the agility of a top-notch Chaser. He finally popped up on the other side of the room, right beside a startled Lily, who almost spilled her entire glass of pumpkin juice all over her pretty lilac dress. Surprisingly, she didn't launch into the usual roaring reprimand; instead, she allowed James to dab at the wet splodge on her dress. Unfortunately, the slight smile she offered seemed only to increase the trembling that had beset his hands.

Remus could have sworn he heard Lily choke out a short burst of laughter as James inadvertently knocked the rest of her drink into the back of a passing member of the Gryffindor quidditch team.

"Someone finally seems to be making headway," Sirius breathed into Remus' ear, causing the lycanthrope to jerk sideways in shock, almost knocking Peter off his feet. Looking only too glad for a chance to wander off in the direction of Mr Potter's delicious selection of nibbles, Peter allowed the momentum to carry him forward through the crowd.

A sudden chill of tension settled over Remus, and his skin prickled. He rubbed at his arms nervously, sharply twitching when Sirius gave him a quick poke to the side.

"You alright, mate? Only you're looking a bit pale there." A slow smile spread across Sirius' face, and Remus stared at the cheeky glint that had appeared in those grey eyes. "Tell you what, I stored some chocolate away in one of those rooms down the corridor. Want to come with me and get some?"

With some effort, Remus shrugged nonchalantly. "If there's chocolate, you know I'm there." He could have sworn Sirius winked before turning to stride off through the chattering teenagers, who parted like a biblical sea before Hogwart's favourite Beater.

Well, he was left without a real choice, wasn't he? Taking a deep, steadying breath, Remus followed his friend's departing leather jacket.

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"I don't really have chocolate," said Sirius as soon as he'd closed the door with a sharp click. Remus whirled about in the small dark room and glared. After a moment, he thought the better of it; after the pressing cheer and chaos of James' largest living room, this quiet seclusion really wasn't all that bad.

"Why would you tease me, you heartless fiend?" he muttered petulantly, collapsing onto the room's solitary couch. Remus peered about the walls, examining the tasteful portraits of flying hippogriffs with some interest. This must be a study of sorts, he decided.

Sirius cleared his throat. "Actually, I brought you here to kiss you," he said conversationally.

Remus gaped.

"Honesty is the best policy and all that," Sirius breezed, strolling about the edges of the room. He plucked a quill from a desk that stood in the far corner and twirled its feathered end about between his fingers. "So how about it?"

Remus cleared his throat hastily. His trachea felt like it was attempting to crawl right up itself and deliver oxygen straight to his brain without dilution. "What, are we – are we actually going to discuss all this?"

Sirius shrugged. "If you like. Me, it's quite simple. While locked in my room for the first few weeks of the holidays, I got some things cleared up in my head. For example: I want to kiss you. And I want you not to hate me, too."

"Er, I don't hate you, Padfoot, you know that," Remus interrupted awkwardly, patting his hands down on the air. "I held your hand the other day, remember?" He smiled weakly at the black-haired boy, who pointed the feather affirmatively.

"That you did. And you – you helped me get to sleep the other night."

Looking at the floor, Remus felt himself glowing crimson. They hadn't discussed this. Not one of the Marauders had dared mention anything about the fact that Sirius and Remus had woken up in the same bed one lovely summer morning. In fact, James had specifically avoided the topic, undoubtedly looking to ward off further confrontations like those that had disrupted their friendship earlier that year.

"You needed me," he said softly, his eyes firmly glued to the floorboards.

"Right." A clatter sounded from across the room, and Remus wondered if Sirius had tossed the quill back onto the writing desk. What was he doing now? "Just like you need all of us at the full moon."

"Yes," Remus answered simply.

"So?"

"So what?"

"Do you want to kiss me back or what?"

"Well," Remus choked, his trachea making sudden progress. "Well, er, well, I mean, er –"

Before he could move, a black boot entered squarely into his vision. Remus' wild eyes followed the boot from its silver-tipped heel to its sprawling laces, then up the long reach of black denim, crawling from belt buckle to black leather, and from leather jacket to waiting smirk.

"You think too much, Moony, my man," Sirius said with a sad shake of his head, and reached down to pull Remus to his feet. "Go with what feels right. Give in a little."

_To hell with it_, Remus thought fiercely, and gripped back at Sirius' forearms. Sirius seemed a little startled by the sudden movement, but wide eyes closed the next moment as mouths came together and ended the discussion.

"Wow," Sirius finally gasped, pulling away. He ran a hand through his black hair and stared down at Remus.

"Wow," Remus agreed, focussing on breathing for a moment.

"First is the worst; second is the best; third – "

"If you say _anything_ about hairy chests, I will stab you one," Remus warned loudly, fighting hard to keep his smile from surfacing.

"Golden princess," Sirius smirked, and received a cushion soundly to the face.

"Just how old did you say you were?" asked Remus dryly as he collapsed onto his back, narrowly avoiding a return swipe. He closed his eyes as he sank back against the soft leather of the couch. "Oh right, sixteen. Evidently a terrible age for teenage boys."

"Don't discuss me like some old bottle of wine," Sirius murmured, and the warmth of his breath eased over Remus' face. Brown eyes snapped open to fix on laughing grey, which hovered mere centimetres away. Remus raised his neck, peering about to find that Sirius' hands were set inches away from his shoulders. He had to restrain a sneeze as strands of fine black hair brushed against his cheek from the falling drape of Sirius' fringe.

"And if you must, at least taste properly before deciding," Sirius continued with a breath of husky laughter. Remus watched wordlessly as soft lips descended, utterly fearless in this darkened room. It was a tantalising show. And then – and then thought and concentration and contemplation failed as those lips met his own, and all that was left was the physical sensation, the soft pressure on his mouth, the cushion pressing into his back.

Finally, oxygen and lungs seemed to press for each other's attention, and Remus pulled away. He could feel the smile imprinted into his lips, and he knew there was no way to hide it. His mind returned the next moment, and he found that he harboured no inclination to keep from beaming back at Sirius.

How incredibly bizarre. A pure, buoyant feeling. Happiness untainted by lies, or secrets, or betrayal, or inner turmoil. How odd.

"Excuse me?" Sirius stuttered, lucidity pouring back into his eyes, which had carried a sort of hazy sheen until that moment. "Did you just say, 'how odd'?"

"How odd to be so happy, you berk," Remus bit, flushing hot with embarrassment, but his smile only grew.

Sirius ducked his head forward unexpectedly and pecked Remus on the lips. "Know what kept me going through the first weeks of hell this summer? What kept me happy and sane?"

Remus, whose cheeks had discovered new realms of the colour red, shook his head. "Wait," he said before Sirius had finished opening his mouth to elaborate. "Padfoot. Dogs are always happy, aren't they?"

Sirius tossed his head to one side, staring at Remus as if in disbelief. "Did you really just say that, Moony? 'Dogs are always happy'? You're making me wonder why you always complain so much about the full moon. I mean, you must be having a ball of a time, stuck inside the body of a canine and all."

Remus snorted, thwacking Sirius half-heartedly in the side of the head. "Werewolves aren't exactly dogs, you spanner."

"You howl," Sirius protested, waving a hand towards the ceiling. "At the moon, I mean. Padfoot can howl, too. And we both have paws." He reached out for Remus' limp fingers and stroked the pale skin with the side of his thumb. "You know," he continued, refusing to allow Remus to negate the point, "Moony and Padfoot aren't so very different when it comes down to it. If a wizard saw Padfoot, he would run away screaming. The Grim's just about as welcome in wizarding society as a werewolf. Maybe less."

"Maybe," Remus allowed, his smile fading as sorrow finally crept into his eyes, "but unlike the Grim, werewolves actually kill people."

"Maybe," Sirius said softly, grabbing Remus' hand a little closer to his chest, "but you don't. And you never will. And what's more is that Padfoot will always be there to give ample warning to potential werewolf victims in the handy form of the Grim."

Remus' heart leapt a little in his chest as he stared right back into the earnest grey of Sirius' eyes. "I know," he replied, brushing his fingers against the smooth leather of Sirius' jacket. "I trust you."

"You do?" whispered Sirius, his voice hushed entirely despite the complete privacy of the small room. Remus blinked. The memory of the entire full moon debacle, Snape's involvement and the betrayal and all, had utterly escaped him throughout this conversation. He was glad. And he knew then, without another doubt, that he did trust Sirius. He trusted him with his heart, his entire heart. Blood pumped strongly in his chest, counting the affirmative.

"I trust you," Remus repeated, the smile flooding back across his mouth.

"How odd," Sirius muttered, prompting Remus to tap him sharply on the forehead. "What? Oh, sorry. I was just contemplating this extreme feeling of happiness that's taken over my body. It feels like I've been hit with at least seventeen Cheering Charms. I feel a little dizzy, to tell the truth."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Go on, tell me what kept you happy and sane while you were living with your parents, or has your mind rolled on from our original topic of conversation?"

Sirius' eyes found Remus and held them steady. "What do you think? I thought of you, of course. I thought of you, and I ran through schemes in my head to make you realise that you like me, and as soon as I felt too pathetic, I became Padfoot and waited for the full moon."

"Worked, didn't it?" Remus mumbled, lowering his eyes. His pulse seemed to be hammering out a spicy Latin dance, while the buoyant feeling in his chest scaled unprecedented heights. His body was breaking records in every arena, and yet it wasn't until foreign fingers had propped themselves beneath his chin that he could raise his eyes once more.

"'Course it did," Sirius smirked, a distinctly canine point to his molars. "Us Marauders always get what we want, and do what we want, and seduce –"

"You'll have to tell Prongs that," said Remus with a wry grin, "not to mention Lily, and I'm sure that'll go down well."

"Be quiet and kiss me, you bloody werewolf," barked Sirius in reply, and that was that.

THE END

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A/N: Fa la la fluff!

***dancing about with a string of tinsel and reindeer antlers dangling off one ear***

**SAD NEWS: This story has finally come to a close – but don't despair, for an epilogue approaches! I really hope you enjoyed the ending to the substance of the story. **

**Thanks for sticking around through the insanity of study questions and barrages of angst and other werewolvian dilemmas! **

**Keep a watch out for the Christmas Special Epilogue. **

**Thanks guys! And…**

**REVIEW!**

**xx Froody**


	24. Epilogue

**A/N: Merry Christmas! I offer this epilogue as a thank you to all those who have spared a moment to review the story and make my day.**

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SIXTH YEAR

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"Tea?"

"Yes, please," two voices answered in chorus. Sirius turned slightly and winked at Remus, who rolled his eyes right back in response.

"Stoat sandwich?"

"You know," said Sirius, a pained expression scrawled across his face, "I do believe that I'm allergic."

"Yeh did look a bit ill after the sandwich I gave yeh last time," Hagrid noted, nodding sadly. "I don' righ' understand it. There's nothin' in there but some nice roasted stoat."

Remus coughed as Sirius rapped his fingers against the hard surface of the table breezily. "Well, you know what they say about stoat, eh, Hagrid? 'Eat stoat, expect to bloat.'"

Hagrid frowned. "Never heard of it." He shrugged once before turning to Remus, the loose frills on his apron almost sending the teapot flying. "How about you, Remus? Can I interest yeh in a stoat sandwich?"

It was extremely difficult to ignore Sirius' less-than-muffled snort of laughter, but Remus somehow managed. He cleared his throat awkwardly and lowered his voice a little. "Er, well, Hagrid, I wouldn't feel right, enjoying a sandwich while Sirius goes without. Maybe next time."

Hagrid shrugged again and turned away, rummaging around in his little kitchen.

"Where've I gone and put the bloody teabags now?"

Now that Hagrid's back was turned, Sirius completely ignored Remus' strict rule of secrecy, pulling their joined hands from beneath the table and onto his lap.

"You are truly noble," he murmured, eyes gazing up at Remus from beneath heavy shades of lashes. "To sacrifice your own needs for my own, why, I simply can't –"

"Oh, shut up," said Remus, cheeks colouring readily. "If you can get out of eating that monstrosity of a foodstuff, then I certainly can."

"Should've just accepted it and fed it to poor Fang here," Sirius said, his free hand outstretched and rubbing vigorously at the adoring boarhound. "I know exactly how much dogs appreciate a nibble. Just a titbit and your eyes go rolling back in happiness…"

"Oi," Hagrid called from somewhere beneath the sink. "Get yer hands away from Fang! I will not have you ruddy boys tamperin' with 'im again for one o' yer pranks, d'yeh hear?"

Sirius laughed out loud in response, and Remus thought he might have even heard a deep chuckle responding from beneath the kitchen sink.

"That was ages ago, Hagrid!" Sirius protested finally, his fingers still embedded in Fang's fur. "That must've been three years now! Forgive and forget, yeah?"

"Wha' about that time you an' James galloped 'im into the lake, eh? Or the time las' year when yeh charmed 'im bright blue –"

Sirius' laughter only increased in heartiness at all the lovely memories. "He's been a good sport, hasn't he, Remus? A better sport than you, most of the time. And look, Hagrid – even after all I've dragged him through, he still absolutely dotes on me, doesn't he?"

Remus gazed down at the obsequious boarhound and sighed. Those warm chocolate pools of liquid adoration staring up at Sirius could very well be his own. It was a sad and undeniable fact: no matter how much trouble and trauma Sirius dragged him through, there was no way that Remus could ever say no to him. There was no way the werewolf could even scrounge up a little piece of dislike or resentment for the grey-eyed half of Hogwart's Pestilent Pair.

One thing was certain. Remus was in it deep. Neck-deep. Nose-deep at times (he often found it hard to breathe when Sirius was around). Sirius was Trouble, just as James was Trouble, and Peter tried to be Trouble. Remus wouldn't change that for all the Honeydukes' chocolate in the world – no matter how many times he got dragged through the lake (seven times to date and counting).

It was hard to pull his eyes from the pale fingers that were still stroking over Fang's shiny coat, but eventually Remus sighed and checked his watch.

"Come on, we'd better scoot," he muttered to Sirius as Hagrid finally straightened, a small bag of tea leaves clutched triumphantly in one giant hand. "Sorry Hagrid, we've got Divination now. Nyx will kill us if we're late again. Good to see you, though!"

"Yeah, it's been too long, Remus," Hagrid answered, his disappointment already fading into a warm smile that crinkled his eyes into black beetles. "An' you too, Sirius," he said more loudly, laughter clearly evident in his tone. "Fang misses yeh. I don' understand it, myself."

The two boys (hands separated for both Remus' and delicacy's sakes) exited the cabin with smiles wide across their faces. Remus rubbed a hand against his cheeks, feeling the muscles strain and pull like they had been for the past several months. Evidently, it was not natural to smile so much. It was probably indecent to carry about a grin on your face at all hours of the day – undoubtedly, Filch had been taking some rather sour notes.

Ah well, he thought to himself, cheer still stretched across his face despite it all. It wasn't like he could help it, anyway. He was as doped up on Sirius as Fang.

He glanced across quickly to Sirius, who was strolling close beside him. There was a smile over there too, the familiar cheeky smirk. Remus rolled his eyes (a regular habit after all these years). Sirius was probably still gleeful about his triumph in convincing Remus to 'go out with him'. Oh, and there was probably some remnant glee from –

"What took you so long?" James burst out, bursting out in person from behind a rather enormous pumpkin. "Peter's been playing 'I Spy' with himself for _hours_, and I couldn't remember that silencing spell!"

"You mean _silencio_?" Remus asked, entirely unable to prevent his eyes from embarking on yet another circuit around his head.

"Quiet, you," said Sirius, waving a finger mockingly at James. "You got to wait out here, all nice and safe in the pumpkin patch, while Remus and I went in and did the dirty work of distraction."

Upon hearing the magic words – 'dirty work' – James practically leapt about himself in glee. "This is going to be brilliant!" he cheered quietly, clapping his hands. "Oi, Pete – come out here and join in the scheming!"

Compliantly, Peter's dusky blond head rose out from behind another giant pumpkin. Remus stared for a moment at the unusual sight of the small boy wrestling with a piece of parchment that sprawled out into the air like a stiffened tablecloth.

"We really must refine the map," he sighed to the others. "I mean, we've got everything on there and all, and you finally managed to charm the names above the moving dots" – he paused and beamed at Sirius – "but there's not really much point having a map of stealth the size of a blanket."

"I'm trying to find Hagrid!" Peter squeaked nervously, his hands pouring over all the parchment he could reach. "He can't be allowed to find us, or everything will be ruined!"

"I'm righ' here," came a very familiar voice from barely a metre away, and all four boys jumped in shock. Remus spun on his heel, eyes travelling up all two metres of overcoat-wearing, bearded suspicion. "Now, what was it that was goin' to be ruined?"

In a moment of remarkable intelligence, James whipped out his wand and silently vanished the enormous map from Peter's very fingers. Remus blinked at this unexpected display of sheer talent. Hagrid blinked at the sudden absence of map, but then shook his head, obviously dismissing the existence of the parchment as a figment of his imagination.

A second after the vanishing, and three seconds after Hagrid's question, a sudden volley of screams arose from somewhere across the lawn. The startled cries were quickly joined by an odd sort of screeching sound.

Remus cringed at the cacophony (though his smile had never truly faded).

"What's happenin' at the quidditch pitch?" Hagrid wondered aloud, turning to peer off into the distance.

Sirius and James exchanged twin smiles. They looked evil.

"Too late," Remus said with the merest hint of an apology, reaching up on his toes and patting Hagrid on the shoulder. "Nothing's ruined after all."

Hagrid groaned. "What have yeh gone an' done now?"

Sirius nudged Remus sharply in the ribs, and the werewolf sighed once before commencing: "Well, look, Hagrid. We've been working on this one for a while, so we're all quite proud of it. Thing is, we decided that the Slytherins have been becoming a little, well, complacent lately…" His voice trailed off as he had to begin searching for his words, looking helplessly for the diplomatic explanation.

James decided quickly that the diplomatic explanation did not exist. He continued where Remus had left off with an easy grin. "Basically, my good friend, we enlarged my old Sneakoscope to giant proportions, hid it over here beneath the loose dirt of your pumpkin patch (it was too noisy to keep in our dormitory, you see) and dug it up while you were chatting away in your cabin with Remus and Sirius."

"Yeh WHAT?" Hagrid began, his voice outraged, but James spoke on, unperturbed:

"It was really pretty easy from there, you see – I just charmed the Sneakoscope to seek out Slytherins and chase them around a bit (like snowballs at Christmas)! Liven them up, you know. And you know what?" he continued merrily, stretching a hand towards the nearby quidditch pitch. "I think they may be holding their quidditch trials today!" James peered back over at Sirius with a twisted smirk. "What a coincidence."

"Mischief managed," Sirius replied with an enormous wink, and the pair of them broke into a spontaneous chorus of evil chortling. Peter laughed right along with them, blond head shaking with mirth.

Speechless, Hagrid looked to Remus for some reassurance. Remus shrugged, finding himself unable to inject the conversation with any semblance of sanity.

"I, er, I better go back to my cabin," Hagrid coughed, ducking his head away quickly. "Thing is, I can't have it looking like I've been involved in this, yeh see?"

Remus nodded silently, waving once at the giant of a man as he padded back down the garden path to his cabin. As he was watching the door swing soundly shut, he felt a cool hand slip into his own. His heartbeat immediately leapt up to the challenge and pounded out a grand tattoo.

"That went alright, hey?" Sirius whispered, his voice still imbued with mirth. "The Sneakoscope has better things to chase than some boring old werewolf, doesn't it?"

"Remember back on the train that time in third year?" Remus asked quietly. "I thought the Sneakoscope was going to expose my lycanthropy for the whole world, you know – or maybe just you three, anyway, but it was terrifying."

"You are my whole world," said Sirius, gazing straight at Remus with a terrifying clarity lightening his grey eyes. "And we exposed you anyway, without a stupid dark device."

"And then you became bloody animagi, and the full moon didn't even matter anymore." Remus' smile could have cracked his face in two. "You sodding idiots. You know you could still be arrested for what you've done?"

"The thrill is in the evasion," Sirius said breezily, squeezing Remus' fingers.

"I think you mean 'the chase'," Remus corrected.

"Ah yes, the chase," murmured Sirius, his voice sliding into velvet as his face moved closer to Remus'. "Tell me more about this chase, Moony."

"I can only tell you that it's likely to continue for a few hours," Remus laughed, dodging away just as quickly. It couldn't be denied that James and Peter had been incredibly understanding about their friends' relationship. Indeed, after the outbreak of some primary insecurities (resolved through an impromptu tussle), the Marauders had been right as rain with the new dynamic. Remus suspected that James even felt the group to have improved through this unexpected development. Still, despite all this, Remus didn't like to push at the boundaries.

Romance and kissing and all that wonderful relationship nonsense were purely reserved for private time.

"You've got a hairy heart," Sirius whispered, the old smirk fixed firmly back on his lips.

"And it's all yours," Remus replied in a sarcastically mellifluous tone, but his eyes shone with nothing but truth.

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A/N: THE (actual) END.

**A final thanks to all those who have spared me a moment and a review – your comments mean absolutely everything to me. **

**And cheers to all who have read the entire story! I hope you enjoyed it. **

**xx Froody**


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